Love Defies Even Me
by ScintillatingTart
Summary: Absence doesn't make the heart grow fonder - it makes the heart die a thousand deaths. Morgan/Garcia
1. Torn Asunder

I don't own anything related to Criminal Minds. Which is probably for the best, all things considered.

Love Defies Even Me  
>by Scintillating Tart<p>

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><p>Part One: Torn Asunder<p>

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><p>It was a normal day without a case, the dearth of paperwork finally overwhelming their inboxes. Seven cases in rapid succession would do that to any team, but for the BAU, it was worse because they had to relive the goriest details of every case and their ultimate conclusion, be it good or bad. There was a reason they all had mandatory visits with the FBI-employed psychologists every week now. They'd spent too many years chasing evil.<p>

No one but Morgan seemed to notice that it was too quiet.

True enough, they didn't always hear from Garcia's lair when there wasn't a case, and he knew it was because she didn't just work for the BAU teams – though they were her primary focus. But this was just too damn quiet. And he hadn't gotten his usual 'smutty dreams, lollipop' text from Penelope the night before – which was enough to start him worrying anyway.

He reached for the phone and dialed her office extension. The generic voicemail greeting kicked in and alarm bells went off in his head. He hung up before the canned message could finish playing and all but ran for Garcia's lair.

No one batted an eye at him rushing that direction – it had happened more times than they cared to admit. In fact, there may have been an eye roll on Emily Prentiss's part when he ran by the bullpen.

They didn't understand: today was wrong, and he felt it to the very core of himself. Something was very, very wrong.

He knocked once then opened the door.

His Baby Girl was nowhere in sight and the office was empty, save the equipment and a single photo with a scrawled envelope propped up against it. He grabbed at the paper, seeing it was addressed to him and that the photo was one of the whole team, feeling like his stomach was dropping out of his body entirely. He hated being right.

_Hot Stuff –_

_You probably think I'm a coward, you coming in on a Monday morning and finding me gone. But there is a reason, and it's not the reason you think._

_Kevin asked me to marry him._

_Love wasn't part of my plea deal. I work for the FBI for the rest of my life, I don't go to prison. There aren't any provisions for marriage, family, love, or any of it: only the cold, hard fact that I could never survive a prison sentence. So, truthfully, this is my prison: doomed to be alone for the rest of my life._

_I know we said 'I love you' a lot, but I'm not sure I can believe that the words were true, now that I'll never hear them again. I'll miss movie night. I'll miss going out with the team and watching you on the prowl. I'll miss you the most – but don't tell anyone else I said that._

_Just… tell them that it was never their fault. It was always mine and I just kept dancing with the Devil, begging for a stay of absolution until I could get my feet back under me._

_I will never forget you._

_I will never stop loving you._

_Baby Girl_

Reading the words was just like reaching into his chest and ripping out his beating heart. There was no hint where she was, where she'd been forced to go: it was just a few broken paragraphs that didn't amount to a fucking explanation.

She was gone.

That was it.

His god-given solace had broken her one promise: never stop talking to him.

* * *

><p>She looked out the window at paradise and felt her heart clench in response. She could see Waikiki Beach from her lanai, could see out to sea, could see Diamondhead to the left and Pearl Harbor to the right – the Bureau had certainly set her up with good digs this time instead of the shitty apartment in Manassas. But it was hollow: this was where she'd stay until she did something else stupid that violated her agreement with the Feds.<p>

Falling in love was the stupidest thing she'd ever done. Far more moronic than having hacked into the FBI's secure databases in the first place, falling in love had opened her up to all kinds of things she didn't deserve to touch. She was a criminal serving a sentence – she didn't have the luxury of being tied down to anyone. Not Kevin Lynch, not the BAU, not…

She stepped back into the condo and slammed the sliding door closed – so hard that it bounced back open again. It took a moment of collecting her quiet thoughts before she closed the door and locked it. They'd sent her as far away from Quantico as it was possible to move her without sending her to Alaska. She was literally by herself on a fucking island with no ties to anyone, yet again.

It wasn't the first time she'd been relocated, but this was the one that was going to drive her somewhere into madness.

She'd given away bags of clothes and jewelry to the Salvation Army before they put her on the plane. Esther was gone. Everything that reminded her of Quantico had been left behind.

It was for the best.

Now she was living on coffee, trying to stay one step ahead of the jet lag that was threatening to consume her alive. Or was it the hollow, sluggish beating of her heart?

She'd replenished her wardrobe with black, grey, brown – anything that didn't have color or life to it. She felt dead inside and anyone that knew her well would know that she really was in mourning for her life – or lack of it now, as the case seemed to be.

All she wanted to do was pick up the phone and call JJ or Derek and blubber down the line.

But she couldn't. They couldn't know where she was. If they did, they would just pick her up and relocate her again.

Penelope Garcia was, once again, truly alone.

She'd sealed her permanent FBI file in such a way that only she could open it again; even the Director had to call her to get it printed off for her new team. He'd asked her to do it in the first place – no one need know where she was, why she was, who she was.

The only thing she had left from her life at the BAU was one single photograph that she'd managed to smuggle out of her apartment under the noses of her guard-dogs. She'd hidden it away for when she knew that life was going to break her – and now was that time.

As she touched the two-dimensional planes of his face, she let out a quiet, mournful whisper. "God, Derek, I can't do this alone."


	2. One Day at a Time

I still don't own anything to do with Criminal Minds. THANK GOD. Because the purple prose would kill the show.

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><p>Part Two: One Day at a Time<p>

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><p>She closed and locked the door, grabbed the TV remote and turned on the news. While she listened to the forecast, which had the usual "scattered rain showers tomorrow from four to five", Penelope got a pot of coffee brewing. Once upon a few days before, she would have cared about getting the right kind of coffee beans and the right kind of water – but now Folgers and tap water was good enough.<p>

There were a lot of things that were "good enough" now that weren't before. Sensible shoes, corporate wardrobe, neutral makeup, pale nailpolish – and dark hair. It felt like she was creating a new identity in this place, one that she could hide behind. She could settle for mediocrity: it was better than the alternative.

She could get lost in pretending to be someone else and stop thinking about everything and everyone she'd been forced to leave behind.

It had only been a week, but it might as well have been a year. Even in Hawai'I, where everything should have been amazing and fantastic, she found herself fighting to smile even a little tiny bit. She'd already given up her vegetarian diet and started eating fish again. It surprised her how good it tasted after so many years of abstaining. She'd taken to walking out on the beach after the sun went down, listening to the ruckus from the Hilton Hawai'ian Village down the way as she looked toward the east, wishing she could get on a plane and run back to Quantico.

Her heart ached for all Penelope had lost, and she'd spent hours ensuring that every search for her was bounced around the FBI systems like a small child on a sugar high. She still received emails at her FBI address, but she didn't answer them – it would take too much work to mask the IPs and reroute them through approved proxy servers.

It was far easier to mess up Kevin's GUI and make it so he couldn't track her. There was a reason she was the best of the best – and it wasn't because she was glorified tech support in a tropical paradise.

Her new job was simple: secure the FBI's Pacific data center. Nothing went in or out without her green light. The actual servers were housed all over California, Oregon, Washington, Alaska, and Hawaii, but she could control them all from her iPhone if needed. It wasn't a bad job – but it wasn't challenging, either. She missed the BAU's instable insanity.

Nine to five was all she was required to put in, so she got there on time and left as soon as she could. She didn't socialize with her co-workers aside from at lunchtime, and she'd already turned down a few requests to join the other data squirrels out for drinks. It just wasn't appropriate, since she was the division head – she needed to keep her distance from her fellow techs.

She poured a mug of coffee and made a face at the bitterness on her tongue as the liquid burned its way down her throat. She'd given up her foofy coffee beverages in favor of good, strong black coffee, wishing and hoping that she could forget everything else as easily.

Eventually, she would learn to sleep again. Eventually, she would be able to watch TV without thinking about marathons of Doctor Who and Cary Grant movies.

Eventually, she would be able to smile again.

Until then, she was stumbling along. Just one day at a time.

* * *

><p>His world felt unbalanced, like if he moved one way or the other just a tiny bit, he would fall off a tightrope and plummet into oblivion. His sunshine was gone – not just covered up by a temporary wall of clouds that would dissipate, but completely gone. Derek Morgan didn't want to admit to anyone how much he depended on Penelope Garcia to keep him on the straight and narrow path of enlightenment.<p>

Depending on someone else was showing weakness.

But that's okay – the entire team was devastated by her sudden disappearance. Hotch had appealed to the Director to attempt to reverse his decision, since it was based on Kevin Lynch and heresay, but the man was unshakable in his belief that Garcia needed to be removed from the team, based on the plea bargain and sentencing that had been agreed upon.

Morale in the BAU was at an all-time low. Even when Hayley had died, even when Hotch had been a trainwreck and Morgan had taken over for him, even when Strauss had gone to rehab – even when Gideon and Elle had left and when Emily had been presumed dead… All of that paled in comparison to losing Penelope for no damn good reason. She had been the glue that held the team together, and now they were starting to pull apart.

They could look up her file in the system, but whenever they tried to open it to see her current location, it would crash the computer and Lynch would spend hours trying to recover. After the first two times, they gave up on that – and JJ discovered by accident that Penelope's official email address wasn't bouncing messages. So they sent her emails, begging her to come home, asking her to call and tell them what happened, something, anything. They were grasping for straws, trying to rationalize why this force of amazing good in their lives would be so abruptly absent.

Derek picked at his sandwich and sighed. He wasn't very hungry: he hadn't been since he'd found her letter. He ate what little he had to, but his stomach was tangled up in knots. Rossi kept taking him out and trying to get him to talk, but Derek couldn't rationalize what he was feeling, let alone put it all into words. He felt like he was drowning under the weight of the world and without Penelope, he'd be lost forever to whatever hell was designated for sinners like him. His angel was gone. What else could he do but give in to the self-loathing that she'd saved him from?

He'd never so much as allowed himself to believe that he was in love with her until she wasn't there anymore. She'd had Lynch and he had been fine with playing second fiddle and watching her be happy. But had Penelope ever really been happy? Had she spent her life living under the shadow of the threat of what had finally come to pass?

It didn't matter now – only that she was gone and the world around him felt so empty without her. Derek wasn't a man that believed in love at first sight, but his love for Penelope Garcia had come up out of nowhere and had knocked him out and stolen his lunch money and left him for dead – with nothing to show for it but a shattered heart and a metaphorically empty wallet.

He wasn't going to give up without a fight.

Derek cracked his knuckles and began to type.

_Baby Girl, you wouldn't believe how much we miss you around here. It's so boring without your smile and your silly jokes. Even Hotch has said how much he wishes you were here. I can't believe it's already been three months since you left._

_We've had some bad cases, but Lynch is finally getting the gist of what we need from him and we're doing okay without you. That's not to say that we wouldn't be better off if you were here, but we'll take what we can get. It still bothers me that I can call your old extension and Lynch picks up – thank god he doesn't flirt with me or it would just be weird, wouldn't it?_

_I'm sure JJ and Emily have kept you filled in on their lives, since this email address is still active. I'm fine. I'm going home in a couple of weeks to see Mom, but it doesn't feel right to not have you drop me off and pick me up at the airport, Goddess._

_I wish you knew how much I miss you, Penelope. I love you and I'm sorry I'm not with you, keeping all the bad things away. I've broken my promise and for that, I'm sorrier than you will ever know._

_I LOVE YOU, SILLY GIRL._

_Your Hot Stuff_

He sent the email before he could change his mind.

* * *

><p>Her phone was blinking when she woke up before the alarm went off. The sun wasn't up yet, but Penelope was only sleeping a handful of hours at a time: never eight, never even five. She'd lie awake, day dreaming about what might have been if she hadn't been young, cocky, and stupid. Her fantasies were too good to be true and by the time she would actually sleep, she'd managed to trick herself into thinking that life could be good again.<p>

She checked the servers then opened her email.

Her heart fluttered in her chest, taking her breath away in a panic so desperate that it hurt. She had an email from Derek Morgan.

She was torn between wanting to open it and not wanting to know. For all she knew, he could be telling her off for "running away", despite the fact that she had no recourse but to follow along blindly as they manhandled her and dumped her in the ass-end middle of nowhere. For all she knew, he could be telling her that he hated her. Or that he loved her.

She wasn't sure which was worse.

His love was like poison – on the one hand, in small doses, it was all it took to sustain her and keep her from dying altogether. On the other hand, when it was meted out and then snatched away, it was like an addiction to a drug that would ultimately kill her as surely as the poison would.

She would understand if he hated her. That would be easy enough to bear.

Penelope bit her lip, caught between the need to know and the want to be ignorant. Her stomach flipped and her heart pounded in her ears as she opened the email.

It took all the strength she had not to break.

He still loved her.

And, god, how she still loved him.

That was why she told Kevin that she wouldn't marry him. Derek Morgan and her puppy dog devotion was how she came to be here at the crossroads of desperation and despair.

It was all she could do not to hit reply.

Instead, she turned on the light and grabbed her laptop. She ordered his favorite cookies – from a bakery in DC – and paid for them from her slush fund that couldn't be traced back to any one location within the FBI.

Twelve chocolate chunk cookies with cranberries – and a card that read, _I love you, too._

She had no witticisms left and she'd flirted away her last flirt. All she had left was her bare heart dangling from her sleeve.


	3. Missing the Cold

I *still* don't own anything to do with Criminal Minds. It's probably a good thing, right? If you didn't already know, this story has been heavily influenced by the music of The Airborne Toxic Event - and if you don't know the band, look them up!

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><p>Part three: Missing the Cold<p>

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><p>It took some doing, but Penelope managed to send everyone at least one gift for Christmas. She'd stalked through Ala Moana Center, gathering ideas, and then she ordered as much as she could online. Everything that couldn't be bought online had been sent east to the Director to be distributed at the BAU offices. She wished she could see Henry's face when he opened up the crate and saw two very fresh pineapples just for him – her godson did love his pineapple, bless his little heart.<p>

She even managed to put on her jingle bell earrings for work a couple of days before they broke for the holiday. Her condo smelled like sugar cookies and she finally found an appetite in the normalcy of baking for Christmas – even though it sure as hell didn't feel like Christmas. Seventy degrees and sunny, but with horrific trade winds that made it feel like it was fifty degrees and almost knocked her to her knees repeatedly as she walked along the edge of the beach at night.

Seven months.

It had been seven months since she'd been forcibly uprooted from her life and transplanted into someone else's.

She never thought she'd make it this long.

She still dreamed about that Friday, a litany of nightmares based on memories too painful to bear. The Director had come to her office and laid down a copy of her signed contract stating that she belonged to the FBI. Until then, she hadn't known that Kevin had gone around behind her back, saying that he'd asked her to marry him and she'd refused on the grounds that she was in love with someone else. Which was true – but the instant the chatter fell on the Director's ears, she knew it was over. Her life wasn't her own anymore.

He hadn't been told that Strauss had relaxed the fraternization rules for her. He hadn't known that she was making ties, settling down, finding her place in life. If he had, she would have been transferred long before. Every move she made to make something permanent in her life was like hammering another nail into her coffin – it went against her agreement to serve the FBI in her utmost capacity until she died or was released from the sentence.

She wasn't free and she never would be.

And that was the biggest nightmare of all.

Moreso than the dreams where she ran after Derek Morgan only to find him married to some beautiful, tiny thing with a passel of kids and that white picket fence that she'd always wanted to be her own.

She still couldn't sleep worth a damn.

Her alarm went off at four a.m. on December 25th, and she got up robotically, moving around the condo and getting dressed in something that resembled festive. She was trying like hell to capture the mood so she could make her Christmas calls without sounding as overwhelmingly sad as she felt. She flipped on the tiny Christmas tree and watched the fiber optic lights flicker and blink before she sat down at her desk and started hacking the phone company.

When she had enough redirects programmed that she was confident that, if pressed, they would trace her call to a café outside Santa Monica, she exhaled a shaky breath and murmured, "Well, this is it, isn't it, Garcie? Birthdays and holidays and only on your terms."

She bit her lip and hesitated for a long moment before she grabbed the landline and dialed. She'd hacked the airline and gotten Derek's seat to Chicago upgraded to business class because she loved him and she wanted him to be happy to be home for the holidays. So her first call was obvious.

The phone rang twice, then she heard Fran Morgan say, "Unknown number my ass – this better not be Aaron Hotchner calling my baby boy back to work."

Penelope bit out a laugh. "No, ma'am –"

"Oh, god, it's another one," Fran sighed. "Look, my son isn't interested – I don't care if you slept with him for a couple of days a few years ago, he's not available now. He's engaged. So leave him alone."

"Momma, what the –" she heard Derek say in the background.

Her heart stopped beating and she fumbled with the phone, hanging up before he could get on the line and tell her about his beautiful fucking fiancée and the life he was building for himself. She felt sick to her stomach and the migraine she'd been fighting for days suddenly exploded behind her eyes to accompany the torrent of tears that was raining down her face.

What a fucking mistake.

She was a fool.

A stupid, stupid fool.

She stripped down to her underwear and crawled back into bed. Nothing mattered anymore. She was lonely, sick, and just wanted to believe that her world might just one day be okay again.

* * *

><p>Derek stared at his mother as he came around the corner with one of his nephews on his hip. "Momma, what the –"<p>

Fran glanced over at him and gestured for quiet but the dial tone suddenly deafened her. "Jesus, I don't think one of your floozies ever hung up that fast before," she commented wryly.

"Momma, I don't date floozies – I date women who like S-E-X," Derek spelled.

"Nana, what does S-E-X spell?" Damien asked with wide eyes.

"It spells never you mind," Fran said, pointing at the little boy. "Go play with your new toys, kiddo."

"Okay, Nana!" Damien cried, struggling to get out of Derek's grasp. Once he set the kid down, he was off like a shot back into the living room.

"Mama, lemme see the phone," Derek said softly. "I wanna see if I know the number."

"There wasn't one," Fran said, handing over the receiver.

Derek's eyes widened as he looked at the 'Unknown Number' flashing on the caller ID. "Oh god. Momma – what if that was –"

"It didn't sound like her," Fran said gently.

"Did you even let her get a word in?" Derek demanded. "Or did you just go off on your usual tirade for whenever a girl calls the house?"

Fran had the decency to blush a little. "Well, I may have –"

"So help me, god, Momma, if that was my Baby Girl and you made her hang up, I will never – NEVER – forgive you," he swore angrily.

"Derek, for god's sake, why would she call here?" Fran asked. "Why wouldn't she just call your cellphone?"

He sighed and reached up to scratch his head – he needed to shave because it was starting to itch. "Momma, I don't know. I've been waiting to hear from her for so long – I just want to hear her voice. You don't understand."

Fran smiled sadly. "I understand more than you know, kiddo," she said softly. "I'd give anything to be able to talk to your dad again." She reached out and patted his arm. "She'll call. And you'll be so happy when she does."

He let out a low, frustrated sigh. "I love her, Momma."

"I know," she assured him. "She does, too."

"God, I hope so," he said, crossing his arms defensively. "The team talked the Director into sending her a box of gifts for Christmas." He frowned, feeling ill at ease for the first time in a long time. "I sent her a bunch of stuff she left behind – some of her crazy pens and her troll dolls and…" His voice trailed off. "Momma, if I knew where Penelope was, nothing on earth would keep me from going to her."

"I know," was all Fran could reply. She pulled him into a hug, wishing that he could find peace.

* * *

><p>Penelope fumbled with her bathrobe, pulling it on as the insistent knocking on the front door didn't go the fuck away. Living in a high-rise was fine until someone let themselves in – not that she wanted to see anyone. Let alone on Christmas Day, the one day when she had no defense in place to handle her depression.<p>

She opened the door, squinting even with her glasses on because her headache was monumental. "Yes?" she asked a little too sharply. "What do you want, Kai?"

"This got brought over by courier last night but you left before I could make sure you got it," Kai Arakaki said with a small smile. "The Director sent it, so it must be important – and it's heavy as hell." He gestured to the enormous box on the floor.

Penelope raised an eyebrow and looked at the box. "Are you sure it's not ticking?" she asked her boss warily. "Or that it's not going to blow up when I open it?"

Kai shrugged and winked. "I guess that's part of the surprise, then – do you want me to bring it in?"

She sighed and rubbed her forehead. "I suppose so," she murmured. "You can't just leave it in the hallway, right?" She paused. "Don't you have a family you should be home with?"

"We're not doing Christmas dinner till later – Mom's busy making sushi and mochi," he replied with a grin. "You sure you don't want to come with?"

Penelope shook her head. "I've got a nice frozen pizza with my name on it," she joked lamely as she watched him drag the box inside. "What's in there, anyway? Anvils?"

"I'm not in the habit of opening other people's Christmas presents," he replied cheerfully. "Last chance on the sushi, Garcia –"

She smiled and gave him a hug. "Thank you for bringing my package," Penelope said. "I'm going to stay here and keep an eye on the cluster in Juneau – they've been having some issues with incoming traffic the last couple of days," she lied smoothly.

"Garcia, you're a workaholic," Kai sighed, shaking his head. "You need to come to the New Year's party if you don't go to anything else."

"I'll think about it," she hedged, showing him back to the door. "This isn't the best time of year for me being social, sir."

"Stop calling me 'sir'," Kai ordered.

"Only when you stop calling me Garcia," she replied flippantly, closing the door behind him pointedly.

Torn between curiosity and exhaustion, she stared at the box for a long moment, then went back to bed. When she woke up again, the sun was starting to set and her bedroom was already darkening. She got up and walked into the kitchen, passing the massive box as she did. She got a can of guava juice out of the fridge and regarded the box with a dispassionate frown.

It was truly Pandora's box.

It could be full of amazingness or full of horrible things. Knowing the Director, it was likely both.

She finished her juice and let out a low sigh. Might as well get it over with. She got a pair of scissors and attacked the tape that held the box shut, frowning when all she saw was stupid freaking anti-static packing peanuts. That meant she had to dig in the box – which was almost as tall as she was. If the intent was to get her to lean into the box and up-end herself, she was going to be really pissed off.

The first thing she actually managed to get out of the box was a shoe box – which had a beautiful pair of crystal-studded purple pumps in them and a card from Emily Prentiss. By the time she got to the bottom of the box, where she found an unassuming box from Derek, she'd uncovered a precious bounty of beautiful, happy things from her friends. Kevin had even sent a new game for her, citing that she was probably bored in her downtime.

But when she opened Derek's box, she burst into tears, pulling out one thing after another that she'd once held so dear. Until she got to the bottom of the box and saw a small box wrapped in blue holographic snowflake paper. A box within a box within a box. The metaphor wasn't lost on her, but she tore into the small box and dropped it on the floor in shock.

A single pink diamond twinkled at her from the carpet.

Heedless of the time difference or the thought that she could very well be caught out, she grabbed the landline and dialed Derek's cell. She knew the number by heart and had woken up in the middle of the night dialing it more than once – but right now, she couldn't breathe, couldn't think, didn't care if he was completely insane or if she was hallucinating… all she needed was to hear his voice.

There was a long pause and a tired groan. "Morgan –"

She could barely find her voice. "I know I'm a little late, but Merry Christmas, Handsome," she finally whispered.

Silence.

"Derek –"

"Give me a second to get over how fucking glad I am to hear the sound of your voice," he insisted softly. "My god, Baby Girl, is it really you?"

"Yeah, it's me," she murmured. "Did I wake you up?"

"For once in my life, I can honestly say yeah – my nephews wore me out," he chuckled softly. "Did you have a good holiday, Mama?"

She closed her eyes, letting the sound of his voice wash over her like a soothing balm. "Not till now," she admitted softly. "I got the box," Penelope said. "You'll have to tell everyone I said thank you – but don't tell them that they made me cry. They don't need to know that."

"Baby –"

"It's okay," she assured him. "I'll make good use of everything – I promise. Except I don't… I don't understand the ring, Derek."

He sighed. "Baby Girl –"

"Because you love me, but you don't love me like that," she said, her voice lowering with her emotions. "And I can't just –"

"Penelope, shut up," he growled. "Do not even presume to tell me how I feel about you – don't you dare do it, Angel. You are my god-given solace and I haven't slept a full night since you left. I didn't know how much I loved you till you weren't here anymore. That ring is a promise, Baby Girl – I AM going to find you and I AM going to marry you, if you'll come down from heaven and make this mere mortal happy."

"I – Derek –"

"Shh, honey," he whispered. "I'm sorry they forced you to go, but I'm not sorry that it took that to make me realize what and who I really want. When I find you, and I WILL find you, I'm not letting you go ever again, Penelope." His voice softened and he said, "Does the ring at least fit? JJ said you wear a size 8 –"

She picked it up and tried it on, then smiled for the first time in ages – she really smiled. "Yes, it fits," she whispered. "And it's beautiful."

"Not as beautiful as you," he said wistfully. "I know you can't tell me where you are but wherever you are, I want you to know that you're carrying the most important part of me with you."

"What's that, Derek?" she asked.

"My heart."


	4. Sweet Dreams Are Made of This

I still, tragically (or not so tragically?), don't own anything to do with Criminal Minds.

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><p>Part four: Sweet Dreams are Made of This<p>

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><p>She was kissing him with an erotic cocktail of desperation and desire as if she sensed how fleeting their moments together were. He could barely keep it together; every time he tried to slow things down, she drove him closer to the edge of madness with just that coyly sad cocking of an eyebrow, as if pointing out just how futile his attempts to push her away for a moment to regain his footing was.<p>

Penelope had always kept him off-balance, and in love, it was no different. As if from deep inside, a rumble of need escaped his lips when her nails raked his chest, leaving tiny welts in their wake. "Mine," she whispered, using one perfectly-manicured yellow nail to etch a 'P' over his heart. The rumble became a growl and he pounced, devouring her with kisses as if he were starving for her. And he was.

Derek Morgan would defy heaven and earth to bring his goddess to her knees – so she could grant him his one wish. To be happy, to be loved, to be with her again.

Somewhere deep inside, he knew this was all a dream and when he opened his eyes, he'd still be alone, but dreams were distracting and could hold more truth than he cared to acknowledge. He dreamt about his goddess every night, about ravishing her until she couldn't breathe without his name on her lips; and every morning, he woke up feeling empty.

He could feel her in his bones, in his blood, and until he had her again, this was all he could do – dream.

He fumbled with her dress, drinking in her lush curves as they came into view, loving the feel of her soft skin beneath his fingers. He delighted in the shivers that overtook her when he barely brushed her skin, smiling at the gooseflesh that raised in response to her moan and his touch. Her eyes darkened with lust tempered with devotion and love and she murmured, "You gonna just stand there, Hot Stuff, or are you gonna make Mama a happy girl?"

If he had his choice, he'd make her pinup curves his next tattoo – but that wasn't exactly work appropriate. Not to mention, no artist could capture the woman's 'come hither' eyes.

She was perfect in his eyes; every kiss was delicious, every brush of her fingers against his skin was new and exciting, sending thrills up and down his spine, making him harder by the second. All he wanted was to be inside her and hold on tight for the ride. They were like arsonists, setting fire to the world to watch it burn down with the power of their love.

And it was so good.

She trailed kisses down his body, working his jeans and trunks down his legs, smiling impishly up at him with those delightful raspberry-colored lips that tasted as sweet as they looked. She licked along the length of his cock, making him stumble back the few steps to the wall to steady himself. She followed with single-minded devotion, chuckling at the look on his face, before she moved in for the kill.

She kneaded his ass as she licked and sucked, bringing him deeper into her willing, able mouth. His breathing was ragged, hitching in his throat as he closed his eyes and focused on feeling everything she made him feel. She pulled away teasingly and he looked down in alarm, but she licked across the slit of his cock with a small slurp that sent a shot of lust spearing through him. And then she was sucking on him with the focused determination of a woman who intended on making it damn good for him.

His orgasm was white-hot, pulses of insane pleasure breaking him like lightning striking an ancient tree, shattering him to the very core.

Derek Morgan woke up seeing stars and covered in cum like a fucking teenager with a wet dream.

But such a wet dream it had been.

His heart wouldn't stop thundering in his chest and he was already reaching for his limp cock, needing to feel the bliss she'd brought him to again. But no matter how much he fucking touched himself, it just wasn't enough.

He needed Penelope. 

* * *

><p>Her sweaty fingers slipped from the bars on the metal headboard again and when she fumbled for her grasp again, she white-knuckled the bars with a low cry of pleasure as his tongue swirled around her clit, distracting her. Her heartbeat had settled into her pelvis, each beat matching his movements in an erratic, erotic dance that rivaled anything they could have brought to the dance floor.<p>

She knew words were pouring from her lips, but when pressed to think of what they were, she couldn't think enough to know anything but that she was sopping wet and desperate for him. All she wanted was for him to be inside her – the rest of the world be damned. She fucking wanted him to love her in all the ways she couldn't possibly love herself; and she knew he did.

She went limp like a dishrag when her climax passed again, her fingers clinging loosely to the headboard. Every time he made her come, it pulled on her heartstrings, making her wish it wasn't just a fucking dream – and she knew it was a dream because it was too good to be true.

But she didn't protest when he crawled up her body, leaving scorching hot kisses in his wake. By the time he reached her lips, she was squirming and shaking with a kind of wanton need and lust that nothing could quench but him.

"Derek," she croaked, her fingers moving to his shoulders, "fuck me. Please stop teasing and just fuck me."

His smile was devastating as he whispered, "Your wish is my command, princess."

He was so hot, so virile, so – so – so very him. Derek Morgan was her perfect match. Her voice died in her throat as he slid home in one stroke, filling her to the brim. Her hands found the bars again, holding for dear life as he settled in a fast, hard rhythm that had her exploding around him in seconds. Fuck, she was going to die from bliss – but she wrapped her legs around his hips and bucked against him in counter-rhythm anyway.

Their kisses mimicked the insanity that was rocking their bodies, hard, hot, thrusting tongues and desperate begging for more, anything that made this that much more intense.

She was on fire, her body getting hotter and hotter with the impending orgasm that would undo her completely. She fought against it, but that just made the tingling stronger. She felt it start, her toes curling, her knees locking, her hips jerking into rigidity as the pleasure snapped her higher functions.

Penelope awoke mid-orgasm, her heart slamming painfully in her chest, her inner walls clenching hard around nothing, her vision burned out by painful stars from holding her breath in her sleep. When she could breathe again, she lay still, trying to will her blood to stop thrumming in her ears. She quaked with smaller aftershock orgasms for almost half an hour; and that's when the tears began.

It wasn't fair – she needed him and she couldn't have him. The ring wasn't enough – it had been a year since he'd kissed her forehead and told her that everything would be okay. A year since she'd been stolen away from him.

A year was forever.


	5. Twist of Fate

Yup, I still don't own jack squat regarding Criminal Minds. GO ME!

* * *

><p>Part five: Twist of Fate<p>

* * *

><p>It was almost eleven by the time Penelope got off the floor and back into her office – she'd completely missed two conference calls and a staff meeting. Being short people – two staffers were on maternity leave, one was in the hospital with pneumonia, two were on vacation, and one decided it was a fucking wonderful day to just not show up – was hell. She'd spent hours trying to keep her department glued together with the two staffers she had remaining.<p>

She was going to have to work through lunch, probably through dinner, and the likelihood was pretty damn high that she wouldn't be leaving the building for the next couple of days at least. So the first thing she did when she got back into her office was put on a pot of coffee and put her feet up on the desk. At least she'd learned a few things from the BAU – like always have a go-bag packed because you never knew when you'd get fucked by your co-workers and get stuck in the office for a week. Thank god for dry shampoo and those little disposable toothbrushes that came with toothpaste on them.

She popped a couple of ibuprofen when her coffee was ready and she took off her glasses, rubbing her temples wearily. Now was the worst time to have server issues, but half of the FBI network was crashing because some fucking idiot had gone and downloaded a self-replicating virus. They were doing their best to keep the Pacific Rim up and running, but even with a preventative string of code in the server cluster, it wasn't helping with the infected computers along the way. And she was tired of answering calls.

As if to illustrate the point, her phone rang.

"Motherfucker," Penelope swore tiredly, activating her headset. "FBI Pacific Rim data station, Supervisory Special Agent Penelope Garcia speaking," she said as cheerfully as she could. "If this call is about the FBT761 virus, you'll need to contact your division team leader and your issues will be passed on to the appropriate departments."

"You missed the staff meeting," Kai said, sounding just as tired as she felt.

"Sorry – the Seattle clusters almost went down and Hannity and I just managed to thwart that attack," Penelope sighed. "I'm almost done with the code-around for the virus – I just need another fifteen minutes to finish coding the patch. So please tell Los Angeles not to call me again – I will hurt them."

"Right," Kai said sarcastically. "Because Los Angeles listens to us country bumpkins out in Hawai'i."

She laughed mirthlessly. "Yeah, I know."

"You said fifteen minutes?"

"Twenty if you keep me on the line for long," she sighed.

"Well, hurry up – I got my mom to pack you a lunch."

Penelope felt her eye begin to twitch. "Great," she muttered. "What else happened today that I don't know about?" Her boss always tried to bribe her with his mother's cooking when he had to ask her to do something he knew she wasn't going to like.

"Can you call in the interns?" he asked.

"The interns couldn't handle this kind of a situation," she protested. "What's going on?"

"There's a team from the mainland working with the HPD and they need a tech."

She literally saw red. "Send someone from the fucking fourth floor," she exploded. "God-damn-it-all-to-fucking-hell, Kai – we don't have any fucking people to SEND OVER."

"I know," he said testily. "You know I'm trying to get people in to help, right? I called Jameson and Hogan back from vacation, but they won't be here till tomorrow at the earliest. They need someone as soon as possible."

"I DON'T HAVE ANYONE TO SEND," she repeated slowly and loudly, as if she were talking to a total idiot – which, for god's sake, it was Kai, so yeah.

"Can you keep tabs on your division from your tablet?" Kai asked.

"Yes, but –"

"Mom made you lomi lomi salmon and green tea mochi," he said.

"Fuck," she muttered. "I hate you right now."

"Besides, no one else in this building is qualified to data farm but you," he added unhelpfully. "Wasn't that what you used to do?"

"Yeah, well, now I run a three ring fucking circus," she hissed. "Give me half an hour to get the code operational and I'll hop The Bus."

"You need to get a car."

She rolled her eyes. "I had a car once – her name was Esther."

"Esther."

"No comments from the peanut gallery," she said, logging back into her system and going back to work. "Did your mom pack any sticky rice?"

"And miso," he acknowledged.

"You owe me," Penelope said threateningly. "And I will collect, boss. Count on that."

"When you get to HPD, you'll need to check in with Detective Nakamura in homicide – he's handling the case. You'll just need to show your badge and get the case paperwork from them."

"I'm thinking there should be a couple bottles of very nice wine sitting on my doorstep this weekend," she said pointedly.

"I'm thinking that you're pressing your luck, Garcia."

"Maybe just a little," she acknowledged, terminating the call. 

* * *

><p>She got off The Bus with her lunch pail and her bag of emergency tech goodies. She'd already had to field several panicked calls from her staff, but they were easily enough taken care of, despite the funny looks she'd gotten from the usual tourists and kama'aina on The Bus. She'd openly pointed and laughed at the name of the public transportation system – until it had become the backbone of her getting around. Now she just kept her mouth shut and gave her usual bus drivers baked treats once a week.<p>

She strode purposefully into the headquarters for the Honolulu Police Department, showing her badge to reception and breezing into the homicide division with a casual air about her. "Detective Nakamura," she greeted, extending the hand that wasn't carrying her lunch. "I'm SSA Penelope Garcia – I was told you need a technical analyst."

"Right," Nakamura said, shaking her hand and smiling wanly. "You're a tech."

She raised an eyebrow. "If you don't want me, I can go back to my office and do something more important," she commented sarcastically.

"No, you'll do – I guess," he said. "You'll need to familiarize yourself with the case."

"The Waimea Bay drownings?" Penelope questioned. "I read the case files on my way over. Is there somewhere I can sit and eat my lunch before I get to work?"

Nakamura sighed and opened a door, ushering her into a room that was empty, save a table and a corkboard. "Is there anything you'll need besides –"

"No, I'm good," she said with a smile, setting down her bag and lunch pail. "Thank you, Detective. I assume this is the phone the team will be using to contact me, then?"

"Pretty much," Nakamura said, leaving quickly.

She didn't know what to think. So she sat down and spread out her lunch – Mrs. Arakaki had sent a generous helping of sticky rice, a small container of miso, some lomi lomi salmon, and a very large container of mochi. Kai had clearly emphasized unto her the need to butter Penelope up before springing the bad news on her.

She tucked into the food with abandon, answering a few emails from other division heads about the implementation of her anti-virus code, and taking sips of her tea when necessary. She was almost finished when the door opened and someone stormed inside and walked right past her to the pile of paper on the table, grabbing a folder.

He didn't even look up. "I assume you're the tech the data office sent over," Dave Rossi said in a dispassionate tone. "You'll need to familiarize yourself with the case before –"

"Already done," Penelope said softly, picking her plastic fork up off the table where she'd dropped it only a moment before in shock.

"If we need your help, we'll call you," he continued, flipping another page. "What took you so long to get here, anyway?"

"I took The Bus," Penelope said wryly.

He looked up from the folder, finally.

As his eyes widened, she took the opportunity to pop a piece of mochi into her mouth so she wouldn't have to say anything till she'd had a chance to chew and swallow.

"Penelope Garcia –"

She held up her hand and swallowed. "For the record, if you'd have come last week or next week, you wouldn't even have known I was here," Penelope said very quietly. "I would have sent one of my best people and you'd have stolen them and taken them back to Quantico. But you're stuck with me, my Italian Stallion."

She wasn't prepared for him to set the file down and rush her with a bear hug that took her breath away. "My god, Kitten, it's so good to see you – you look awful!"

Penelope laughed and hugged him back. "I've been up for three days straight," she said in a joking tone, though it was the truth. "You don't look so great yourself."

"I've got to –" He stopped and smiled down at her. "Can you fix my tablet?"

She rolled her eyes tolerantly. "What isn't it doing?" she asked.

"No wi-fi connection even though I KNOW we have signal," he sighed. "I'm not the only one."

"Right," she said, "I had the same problem when I first got here – it has to do with the network out here being a different protocol than the ones on the mainland. I can fix it, no problem," she said dismissively.

"Get your jacket," Rossi said, gesturing at the blazer she'd slung carelessly over the back of a chair. "You're coming with Hotch and me."

"Where?" she asked. "And can I finish my lunch first?" She gestured at the last of the miso and her precious, precious mochi.

"The rest of the team is already on the way to Waimea –"

She flinched as he butchered the word. "It's pronounced W-aye-may-uh," she corrected gently.

He echoed her till he got the name right. "We're going to the crime scenes."

She popped another mochi and said, "Okay, but I'm driving – I know the shortest route. If Morgan's driving the other car, it'll be a while before they get there. The GPS will tell him to take the interstate, but I know the back way."

Rossi smiled at her and said, "Fine by me – and you do look like crap."

She shrugged. "Yeah, well… it's been a year. People change."

He picked up the container that had held the salmon and sniffed it, wrinkling his nose. "Not that much," Rossi said dismissively. "You're still Garcia."

She shook her head. "Not really."

She didn't elaborate.


	6. Reunions

Yeah, this is your standard opening of "I own nothing, nothing owns me, blah blah Criminal Minds is the best damn show, blah blah".

* * *

><p>Part six: Reunions<p>

* * *

><p>"They left after we did and they got here before us," Emily Prentiss muttered dryly. The beach parking lot was empty, aside from an SUV and several police cars. "That's the last time we let you drive, Morgan."<p>

"Stop giving me shit," Derek grumbled. "I followed the GPS directions, the GPS got lost, we turned around, got on H2 and got here."

"Yeah, whatever," JJ snickered. "You just couldn't tell north from west."

"O'ahu is an easy island to get lost on," Reid spoke up from the back. "There are only a couple of main routes around the island itself and –"

"Your sarcasm is heartwarming, kid," Derek snapped. "Let's just go already."

Emily and JJ were already out of the car, when they were stopped by a shout by Rossi, and came back to Derek. "Hey," Emily said, "we're supposed to get all the tablets and give them to you. The tech is in the other SUV – Rossi says she can reprogram the wi-fi to work properly." She handed him her and JJ's cases and smiled. "Apparently, you get to deal with the geek this time."

"Remind me to thank Rossi later," Derek muttered. "You guys go on – I'll be there in a minute."

He shook his head and sighed as he walked toward the other car. He knew Rossi's game – female tech, use Morgan to butter her up a little bit and then they'd get a more productive round of work out of her. That's the way it was on the road; Lynch never traveled with the team. And he was definitely a 9 to 5, 5 days a week guy: no extra effort to get the job done. But Derek hated being treated like a piece of meat some days – and this was one of them. He was more than slightly jet lagged with the eight hour time difference – it was two in the afternoon and his body was screaming that it was almost time for bed – so he was grumpy and just wanted to get back to the condo the FBI had put the team up in.

He knocked on the driver's side door before he opened it. "They told me to bring you the tablets," he said, setting the cases down on the seat and forcing a smile onto his lips.

The woman was turned away toward the other window, and she snapped into the phone, "I need you to make sure the patch is sent to every node in the country and added to the framework as soon as possible. That's the only way we're going to end this infection. I don't care that it crosses division lines – just hack the damn servers and install it."

The fire in her voice struck him first. Then the realization that –

His heart stopped.

"Thank you," she muttered, hanging up the phone. "Great – now I have to charge the damn thing." She fished around in a bag and came up with a cord which she plugged into the cigarette lighter and attached to her phone. Only then did she turn toward him.

She was so different, but this was definitely – it was Penelope. She'd lost a lot of weight, she was dressed in black and white, her hair was dark, her nails were done simply, and gone were her bright eyeshadows and sensual lipsticks – but it was his Baby Girl, in the flesh. And all he could do was stare.

He couldn't even open his mouth to make a sound.

She lifted her left hand to adjust her glasses and he caught the sunlight bouncing off the ring – his ring – the ring that was a promise that he'd find her and make her happy.

His heart thundered back to life and he jumped into the driver's seat and slammed the door shut, grabbing the back of her head and pulling her to him, kissing her with all the life he had left within him. Between desperate, hungry kisses, he whispered, "Baby Girl, my god – I love you. So much."

Her phone began ringing insistently and she pressed a hand to his chest, gently pushing him away before she grabbed it. "Garcia," she greeted in a clipped voice. "Kai – yes – yes – hell yes I told them to hack the Northeast and – well, fine. Tell the Director that if he wants the virus contained, he should stay out of this turf war. Otherwise, nothing is going to get done and this mess is going to be status quo for the forseeable future. And tell him that *I* said that – this is not coming from you. This is coming from Penelope Garcia. FULL STOP." She hung up and pinched the bridge of her nose beneath her glasses.

He hadn't noticed the dark circles under her eyes or the exhaustion written all over her face – he'd been too glad to see her. But now he saw her level of weariness and felt horrible for just grabbing her and manhandling her. "Penelope?"

"Leave the tablets with me," she said quietly. "You need to be out there, Derek – not sitting in a car making out with me. I'm going to be on and off the phone for a while – go ahead."

"Goddess," he said, his voice lowering in earnest, "you haven't even said hello."

A tiny smile quirked at her lips. "I think you did a pretty good job of that yourself, Handsome," she murmured. "And… we'll have time to talk. Later. Go do your job and let me try to do mine – I should be sitting in my office with the windows open instead of roasting alive in an SUV at the beach."

"Baby –"

She laid her finger over his lips. "I love you," she assured him, "but now isn't the time." Her gaze darted to the sparkling diamond on her finger. "I wouldn't be wearing your ring if I didn't love the hell out of you, Derek Morgan. But you need to go out there and go to work now. And I need to fix your wi-fi."

He kissed her fingertip and said, "I'm not leaving this island without you."

"You've only known I was here for five minutes," she said softly.

"I don't fucking care," he growled. "I am not leaving you again, Penelope Garcia."

She smiled and he could see the true extent of her exhaustion in the tiny gesture. He knew she'd been fighting the whole world for longer than she would ever admit, and she was just tired. "We'll talk later," she vowed. "I love you – you know that, right?"

He nodded and kissed her forehead. "Absolutely."

"Later," she whispered, kissing him ever so gently on the lips. "Now go, before someone else calls me."

"Remind me to thank Rossi later," Derek said softly, responding with a deep, tender kiss that messed up her glasses. He smiled as he gently adjusted them back into place.

Her only response was a real smile – and an annoyed sigh as her phone started ringing again.

* * *

><p>She hung up and looked down at the pile of tablets in her lap. Penelope sighed – she had only been able to get one up and running between calls. She'd just finished talking to the Director, laying down the line on what was exactly going on with the network and why it was imperative that she be allowed to run rough-shod over the other departments since she had a solution to the problem.<p>

Fortunately, for once, he agreed with her. Maybe later, she would be forced to deal with the consequences of talking back to him, but for now, she would take the small victory. Her head was pounding and she didn't have anything to wash more pills down with, or she would have choked down another handful of ibuprofen.

Wanting nothing more than to throw her hands up in the air and run away to catch the bus back to Waikiki, she buckled down and re-programmed the wi-fi cards in the remaining two tablets in record time. Maybe she could get Kai to let her go home tonight instead of sleeping on the sofa in her office? Her back was killing her and the incessant phone traffic was beginning to overwhelm her.

Leaving the phone in the car, she grabbed the tablets and headed toward the beach. Once she got past the concrete walkway, she slipped off her shoes and made a mental reminder to go to Woolworth's and get more pantyhose as soon as things blew over. She carried her pumps in one hand and the tablets in the crook of her elbow as she strolled less than confidently toward the knot of people near one of the lifeguard shacks.

She flashed a snide smile at Nakamura as she walked right up to Hotch and handed him the stack of tablets before turning on her heel and striding away. She heard Prentiss say, "Well, that didn't take too long – I thought we were going to have to call AT&T."

"Hey!" Hotch called. "Where exactly do you think you're going?"

"Bus stop!" Penelope said as she turned around and faced him. "I've got to get back to the data farm – you've got my number."

"Oh hell no," Derek said, breaking from the pack and chasing after her. She didn't stand a snowball's chance in hell of getting away from him, so she didn't even try – just waited for him to catch up.

"I was just kidding, dumbass," she said, smiling as he all but crushed her with a hug. "I'm just going back to the car."

"Don't even joke," he growled, kissing her with force. "Don't even joke about running away from us again, Penelope –"

"I think we're done here for now," Rossi shouted. "We'll meet you all back at HQ."

She moaned softly and kissed Derek again. "Totally unprofessional," she accused before diving in for another hungry kiss.

"Jesus, Morgan, you're gonna suck her face off," JJ said with thinly veiled disgust. "Not to mention those must have been some really fast moves in the car there –"

"What is it with you and technically-able women?" Emily asked, wrinkling her nose.

"He needs someone to program his VCR for him," Reid joked.

They didn't stop kissing, and Derek pulled her closer with one arm, holding her flush against him. She held out her left hand and flipped them all the bird. Penelope was laughing when they broke apart and she hugged Derek so tightly around the waist that she actually thought he'd have trouble breathing. It felt so good to hold him again – it was really real this time, not a figment of her imagination.

"Turn around, Baby," Derek directed in an achingly tender tone. She smiled up at him and released her grasp on him before she turned in his arms to face the rest of the team. He rested his chin on her shoulder and held her tighter around the waist. "Guys, maybe you haven't met my Baby Girl –"

"OH MY GOD!" JJ screamed, her hand flying to her mouth as she seemingly realized how loud she was being.

"Holy shit," Prentiss gasped.

"Hi," Penelope said softly, waving a little. She knew there would be hell to pay for this later, but right now, she was too damn happy to see her family again to care about the consequences. She saw the stricken look on Reid's face and slapped Derek's arms till he released her. She walked up to Reid and said, "Junior G-man, you know I wouldn't have left if I didn't have to – are we still good?" He shrugged and didn't say anything, but she opened her arms and took him in for a hug. "Look, I missed you – hell, I even used some of your magic tricks to break the ice with my staff," she murmured. "I'm sorry –"

She wasn't expecting him to hug her back – so hard that she couldn't breathe. "Never do that again," Reid pleaded against her shoulder. "Don't just leave and –"

"I'll try not to," Penelope whispered. "But I didn't have a choice."

"You've just… been here?" Emily asked. "The whole time since you disappeared?"

"Since I was relocated, yes," Penelope corrected. "I live in Waikiki, at Discovery Bay – the FBI set me up with a condo. Apartment. Whatever you want to call it."

"We're staying at Discovery Bay," JJ croaked.

"Which tower?" Penelope asked.

"Resolution," Emily said. "We've got units 1814, 1815, and 1816."

Penelope nodded. "I'm in 1821," she said softly. "You should come by if you can't sleep. I don't sleep much. You wouldn't be bothering me at all. Assuming I ever get to go home – my life is in a state of upheaval right now."

"Garcia, why don't you ride back with them?" Hotch suggested. "I assume you're coming back to the station with us?"

Penelope smiled. "Yes," she said. "But I'm on call with my division and I might have to rush back to the office."

"You need a car," Rossi pointed out. "My tech kitten doesn't take public transportation."

She chuckled and said, "That's what I used to say. But a couple of nights getting smashed and then not getting a cab can definitely change a girl's mind."

"We can appropriate another car," Derek said. "It's not a problem."

She sighed and rolled her eyes. "You're not going to drive me around," Penelope muttered. "I do just fine on my own, Derek Morgan." She poked him in the chest with one finger to emphasize the point.

He grabbed her hand and kissed it. "The difference is that now, you're not on your own and you don't have to go it alone," he reminded her gently. "Didn't I say I'd find you?"

She kicked him lightly in the shin. "Fuckin' took you long enough," she muttered, earning herself another kiss for the effort of being petulant.


	7. The Walking Dead

Yeah, so, I still don't own anything to do with Criminal Minds.

* * *

><p>Part seven: The Walking Dead<p>

* * *

><p>It was almost one in the morning when Penelope stumbled off the elevator and down the corridor to her condo. The BAU team had long before gone back to Discovery Bay, but she'd gone to her office and worked until she had some semblance of control over the system again. She was beginning to regret that decision, however – she couldn't see straight to get the key in the lock.<p>

Groaning in sheer exhaustion, she slid down the door and sat down on the floor. She only meant to rest her eyes for a moment, but the next thing she knew, JJ was gently shaking her awake. "Hey, Pen – c'mon, let's get you inside," JJ said soothingly as she started awake abruptly.

"What time's it?" Penelope mumbled, pressing her handful of keys into JJ's hand.

"Almost three," JJ said. "I couldn't sleep and you said – but you were just sitting here, passed out."

"I couldn't unlock the door," Penelope sighed, blinking sleepily. "So I gave up trying."

JJ finally found the right key and got the door open. "Here we go, hon," she said, helping Penelope to her feet and leading her inside. "You need to get some sleep –"

"Have to be at work in four hours," Penelope mumbled, stumbling as she kicked off her pumps and tripped over her own two feet – winding up face-first on the sofa. "Fuck my life," she whined. Her self-control filter was shot all to hell and she couldn't explain why she was losing her shit and blubbering like a baby all of a sudden.

"Hey, hey, it's okay," JJ soothed her, gently rubbing her friend's back. "You should call in today."

"Can't," Penelope whimpered. "Too much going wrong –"

"When was the last time you slept?" JJ asked worriedly.

"All night or at all?" Penelope questioned.

"The fact that you had to ask that question is very troublesome," JJ pointed out. "At all."

"Four days," Penelope sighed. "I don't have any coffee left but I've got – no, wait, I don't have anything but water. Fuck. I've been too busy at work to go to the store –"

"Pen, stop worrying," JJ murmured. "Close your eyes and rest. You're going to make yourself sick."

"I'm so tired…"

"Then rest," JJ said softly. "Do you want me to stay?"

"Please."

JJ nodded and sat down on the floor next to the couch. "Okay," she agreed softly. "Now, close those pretty brown eyes and get some sleep."

Penelope sighed and took off her glasses.

* * *

><p>Derek groaned and grabbed the phone, muttering, "This better be damn good, JJ – I was finally asleep."<p>

"It's five o'clock – do you know where your Baby Girl is?" JJ asked sarcastically.

"Down the hall," he grumbled.

"No, actually, she's sleepwalking," JJ said irritably. "I just followed her downstairs, outside, across the street, and down to the beach. And now she's standing there, crying and muttering about you and needing you and being scared and sick and tired and – "

He was off the bed and tugging on his pants in a flash. "Just stay with her," Derek ordered. "Don't try to wake her up."

"Okay – do you want me to stay on the line?" she asked.

"No – just tell me where you are."

"Okay, you know the weird hotel across the street? Go past it to the beach and hang a left – we're not quite at the Hilton," JJ tried to explain. "She's getting really agitated, D."

"I'll be there in five minutes," he said, throwing on a t-shirt and slipping on his shoes. He grabbed his keys and hoped he wasn't going to wake Reid up on his rush to leave.

The sun was just barely coming up over the horizon when he got to the beach. He could see JJ and Penelope just a little further down – in a few hours, the beach would be packed to overflowing with sun worshipers, but for now, it was just them and a couple of drunken revelers down the beach.

Penelope was clearly agitated, as she was pacing the beach in the clothes she'd worn yesterday with bare feet, and she was talking to herself so quickly that the words became unintelligible slurs. As he approached, she looked up at the sky and let out a mournful sob that sounded like his name.

JJ was standing back, just watching her, and as he came up to her, she said, "She's been like this for almost an hour – I don't know what to do, Derek."

"Just stay here," he said. He took a few steps closer to Penelope and said, "Baby Girl? Sweetheart, tell me what's wrong."

She stared at him, her eyes glassy with sleep. "What's wrong? What's WRONG?" Penelope repeated, her voice rising to a shriek. "I need Derek – I need – oh, god, why can't I live without him? Why does it hurt SO MUCH?" Tears were rolling down her cheeks but she made no move to wipe them away.

"You know what, Baby Girl?" Derek said gently. "He misses you, too – and it's just as hard for him to live without you as it is for you to live without him. It hurts because when you really love someone, you're letting them play with your heart – and some people will hurt you."

She cocked her head slightly to the side and absorbed his words. "Why won't he try to find me?" she asked.

"He's tried everything to find you," he assured her. "It'll just take a little more time – and then he's going to ride in on his white horse and carry you off into the sunset. Just you wait and see."

"That's silly," Penelope said, walking past him. "Derek doesn't know how to ride a horse."

JJ fell into step beside him, holding out Penelope's keys. "I'm going to McDonald's on the way back," she said, referring to the one in the building. "You want anything?"

"Nah," Derek said. "She really just got up and walked out here like that?"

"Yeah – I went by to talk to her and she was passed out on the floor in front of her door," JJ said. "So I took her inside and she slept a bit and then got up and just… came out here."

"Thank you for calling me," Derek said. "A couple years ago, she wasn't sleeping much and had a spell of driving to my place when she was sound asleep. I learned to deal – of course, she would crawl into bed with me and hold on like I was a teddy bear."

"I was just standing there – I couldn't do anything for her," JJ said, her voice cracking. "I've never felt so helpless. Not even when Henry's sick."

"It'll be okay," he assured her. "I'll make sure she gets some rest today."

"Thank god it's Saturday," JJ said with a sigh. "But she was saying she has to go to the office –"

"Over my dead body," Derek muttered.

They crossed the street and there they diverged – JJ went to the left to go to McDonald's, and he followed Penelope to the building. She took the keys from his hands as if she knew exactly what she was doing and opened the door to the lobby. He followed her to the elevator, then upstairs, down the hall, and around the corner to her condo.

He watched her open the door and put the keys on the table by the door. It made him wonder how many times she'd done this before – and how long she really hadn't been sleeping.

He saw her shoes haphazardly lying by the couch on the floor as they walked into her bedroom. She took off her skirt and her blouse and fell onto the bed. Derek tried valiantly not to stare at her semi-naked state, but when she whispered, "I just want him to hold me again," it broke him.

He joined her on the bed, pulling her into his arms and holding her as closely as he could manage without pressing against her like a horny teenager. God, he'd almost forgotten how good it really felt to hold her and smell her and –

For the first time in god only knows how long, they both slept.

* * *

><p>She was having a wonderful dream – the team had come to the island and she had finally gotten to have those kisses with Derek that they'd always teased one another about. She didn't want to wake up, but the sunlight streaming in her window was enough to make her groan.<p>

And then she felt another body in bed with her. A very male body – if the morning wood poking her in the back was any indication.

She shot up in bed, pulling the sheets up to shield herself from whoever she'd – oh god, had she been drinking again? She didn't have a hangover –

"Mama, lie down and shut those eyes," Derek grumbled.

It all came flooding back like a slap – her dream wasn't a dream, it was very real. "How did you get in here?" she rasped weakly.

"You let me in," he said honestly.

"I don't remember –"

"You were sleepwalking."

She blinked at him and then looked down at herself. "Fuck – how bad?" Penelope asked. "I mean, I'm almost totally naked, so it had to be bad –"

"You went to the beach," he said softly. "Now, will you lie back and relax?"

"What time is it?" she asked.

"Nine –"

"Sonofabitch, I was supposed to be in the office at seven," she swore under her breath, springing out of bed.

"I talked to your boss and he said you aren't to come in for the next few days," Derek said firmly. "So lie the fuck back down, woman, or I'm going to tie you to the bed."

"I'm hungry," she complained.

"Lie down," he ordered gruffly.

She scowled at him, then complied, sliding back between the sheets and lying primly upon her back, studiously avoiding touching him at all costs. If they touched, it would be explosive –

And then his lips were all over her bare shoulder.

"Go back to sleep," he whispered against her skin. "Close your eyes and go back to sleep, Baby Girl – I'm not going to let anything happen to you. And I'm not going anywhere."

She'd spent so long wishing to hear those words and feel his touch – but she was too tired to be saucy or sexy or…

Shit, she couldn't even keep her eyes open.


	8. All I've Ever Wanted

I still don't own anything related to Criminal Minds.

* * *

><p>Part eight: All I've Ever Wanted<p>

* * *

><p>This time, when she woke up, Penelope knew what was going on – there was no lingering sense of panic that she'd done some fucking stupid ass shit, only a calm serenity that made her smile against Derek's chest. She was glad he hadn't commented too much on her half-dressed state earlier, partially because she'd been too sleepy to care if she had anything on at all. But now she felt a little self-conscious about just chilling out in her second crappiest bra – which needed desperate replacement – and a pair of panties that had definitely seen better days. If she'd have known yesterday that she'd be waking up in bed with the dreamboat of her life, she would've made a better effort to be presentable. As it was, she was going to have to change clothes – and fast.<p>

She made a move to get up but Derek pulled her closer. "Nuh-uh," he mumbled against her back. "Stay down."

"I have to go to the bathroom," she said. "How long have I been asleep?"

"A couple of hours," he replied.

"Well, I'm up now," she said cheerfully. "Wanna go to Denny's?"

She heard him sigh against her shoulder. "Penelope, how long have you not been sleeping?" he asked.

"Honestly? Since I left Quantico," she murmured. "But it's okay – I'll be fine. I've got you, now, right? You'll keep me on the straight and narrow."

"Mama, don't you dare try to butter me up," he muttered, kissing her neck. "I can see right through that cute act of yours."

She paused for a long moment, then whispered, "You know what's going to happen? They're going to move me again. And it's going to be worse because I've had a glimpse of what life could've been like if I hadn't been an idiot when I was nineteen. I'm tired of fighting, Derek – I can't take on the entire world by myself and I can't ask for help because this is entirely my own fault."

"Baby Girl, nothing else is going to happen," he contradicted.

"You wanna make a bet?" she challenged. "This is far from the first time I've been relocated. I know what happens when I get too close to people, Derek. You should be running away as fast as you can because being with me is just going to get you hurt."

"Love isn't love without pain," he reasoned.

She felt sick when the next words tumbled out of her mouth. "You should go home and forget me." She didn't want to hurt him any more than she already had – he deserved more than she could give him. He deserved the beautiful house, trophy wife, 2.5 kids, cute puppy in the yard and kitten in the house.

"You don't mean that," he said softly, pulling her closer again. "Because you're still wearing my ring, Baby Girl."

She thought about removing it just to prove him wrong, but couldn't bring herself to do it. "You deserve better than a rehabilitated convict, Derek."

"Are you really trying to get me to leave?" he asked. "Because you're going to have to do a lot better than that."

"I don't want you to get hurt –"

"Stop the sanctimoniously noble bullshit, woman," Derek growled, forcing her to roll over and face him. "I'm tired of playing games with you because you think you aren't worthy of my love. You're my Baby Girl – no one else in this life is going to take your place. I told you how much I love you, Penelope. This last year, all I could think about was you – finding you, comforting you, making everything all right again. All I ever wanted was you. I'm sorry if you think some stupid excuse is going to get me to walk away – because it's not. They're going to have to shoot me if they think they can just take you away, Penelope."

She blinked up at him, seeing the blind determination in his face, and it scared her how serious he was – in that moment, she really believed that he was losing his mind. "I have to pee," she said, needing to get away from him before she said things she couldn't undo. He released her and she scurried to the bathroom, locking the door behind her. Her heart was going a thousand miles an hour and she was dizzy from the thought that, yes, he was 100% serious and 100% in love with her. This wasn't a passing thing. And if he ever knew how long she'd loved him like that…

She splashed water on her face, the towel shaking in her hands as she dried herself off. Maybe it was time to stop running from everything that might hurt and stand up for what she wanted. She could argue that she didn't deserve anything, let alone him, but her selfish nature would just rear its ugly head up again and make her look like a fool. She wanted him more than she'd ever wanted anything else in her life, and she would be a fucking idiot to not jump on this chance before it disappeared again.

She put on her robe and felt better – she wasn't quite so exposed. She tried to calm her breathing and let her heartbeat slow down again before she went back out there.

He was waiting for her, propped up on his side in khakis and a t-shirt – he'd put his clothes back on after she'd gone into the bathroom, clearly. He was devastatingly handsome in the way that every woman on the planet – straight or slightly bent or even completely crooked – could appreciate, and she still couldn't believe that his focus was on her like THAT.

Penelope crossed her arms over her chest and said, "So, I –"

"Can I say something?"

"You've been saying a lot of somethings," she retorted.

He held up his hands in surrender until she softened. As soon as he saw that, Derek said, "I know you're scared, Penelope, and you can't fight that. But what I saw out on the beach this morning – my girl, my beautiful, sexy Baby Girl, was broken and begging for me and I was standing right there. I can't let you hurt like that anymore, Penelope. I won't. I wanted to wake you up and prove how much I love you, but I couldn't – and then you just… you said you just wanted me to hold you again."

"It's all I've ever wanted," she whispered, closing her eyes so she didn't have to look at him. Being honest to herself in the mirror was one thing – proving it to him was another altogether.

She could feel the beating of his heart when he pulled her into his arms, holding her tightly but tenderly, as if it was all he'd ever wanted to do. Everything crashed down in that moment and she took a deep, shuddering breath that mutated into a horrifying sob. She cried and cried and cried until she couldn't force out another tear if she tried. And all he did was hold her.

It had been so long since she'd just let go of the poison festering in her. That he hadn't run away, screaming, was a miracle. That he was still in love with her was nothing short of astronomical.

"I love you so much," Derek whispered, tilting her chin up so she would have to look at him. "Never doubt that, Baby Girl. Never."

She whimpered and snaked her arms around his waist. "I love you more," she croaked, her voice hoarse from the sobbing she'd been doing for god only knows how long. "You don't know how hard it's been to keep you away when all I want is you to hold me and promise things are going to be okay again," she whispered. "I never thought I'd walk into the middle of a BAU investigation when I left the office yesterday, but oh my god, I've never been so happy to see you – not ever."

"Stop pushing me away because you're scared," he advised softly. "Because I know people who know people and we're going to get married tomorrow – if you're willing."

She pulled back and blinked up at him. "Married? You really want to marry me?"

He twined his fingers with hers, smiling down at her. "Silly girl, why else would I give you a damn ring and say I'd cross heaven, hell, and earth to find you?"

"Oh," was all she could say. Well, technically, it was all he would allow her to say – because as soon as the word left her lips, he must have decided to convince her of his words being very valid and very much in earnest. His kiss was as demanding and possessive as it was arousing – her nipples were rock hard and her panties were already wet by the time he broke the kiss and reached for the sash of her robe. "No, you first," Penelope said, gesturing at his clothes. "I want to see what I've been missing all this time – and make sure I made the right choice."

Derek glared at her, but complied and started by removing his pants. Her mouth went dry and she licked her lips rather indelicately. When he took his shirt off a moment later, his reply was a muffled, "There was never a choice to be made, woman – you've always been mine."

And for the first time in a long time, she had to admit to that very truth. From the moment he'd called her "Baby Girl" accidentally, she'd been his willing partner in crime and – almost everything else.

Now, suddenly, she was getting the everything else she'd been missing out on. She still couldn't believe that he really wanted her –

Once he divested her of her clothes, everything was fast and furious – there was no time for thinking, no time for anything but feeling. She was going to be limping and bruised and so sore… but feeling him so deep inside her took her breath away completely. His kisses scorched her skin, her heart exploded with utter bliss when he showed her just how much he'd missed her. And she showed him that good morning in the early afternoon that they'd both dreamed about so futilely.

When they lay quiet in each other's arms, she whispered, "Tomorrow, then."

"I don't want to push you –"

"No, I'm done waiting and hoping and wishing on a fucking star," Penelope said as firmly as she could, moving even closer, draping her leg over his and wishing she could crawl into his skin. "You and me, Morgan. You and me forever – like all those stupid cheesy things little girls think when they're too young to realize what the world is really like."

"We've always been forever," he murmured, kissing the top of her head.

"You're a silly romantic," she teased, kissing his chest and loving the satisfied rumble that she heard beneath her.

"As long as it gets me you, I'll be anything you want, Baby Girl."


	9. And it Starts

I don't own anything related to Criminal Minds. Thank god.

Some of you have asked how I know this much about Hawai'i – and it's because I lived there for a while. For a while, we lived in the Endeavor tower at Discovery Bay, then we lived up in the middle of O'ahu. So, yeah – poke and sashimi forever!

* * *

><p>Part nine: And it Starts…<p>

* * *

><p>The good-natured ribbing began as soon as they joined the team for dinner. Hotch wasn't exactly pleased that they'd both skipped out on a new body washing up on-shore, but when he realized it was because they'd spent the day sleeping – among other things – he'd changed his tune. Apparently, Penelope wasn't the only one that had been having a year's worth of difficulty sleeping.<p>

And no one missed the goofily happy smiles that Penelope and Derek kept shooting each other, or the fact that their hands were entwined so tightly that their knuckles were white with the effort of holding on.

"So," Rossi said, "am I to assume that I need to be going with someone to get the appropriate rings picked out?"

Derek had the decency to look chagrinned. "Actually, I have them already." He pulled the long chain he was wearing out from under his shirt and showed him the plain white gold men's band and the band that matched Penelope's solitaire. Hers was much more ornate – it had tiny pink diamonds studded inside a small oscillating pattern that would nestle up against her engagement ring in perfect harmony.

"And have you made that call?" Rossi asked. "Or were you two too busy –"

"Don't finish that sentence," Emily grunted, wrinkling her nose.

"We go before the justice of the peace at 8:30 tomorrow morning," Derek spoke over Emily. "Before open season and everything else – and I owe Bob in HR a huge favor. Judge Chao is his wife's sister."

"Have I mentioned in the last five minutes how much I love you?" Penelope asked very softly, a tiny smile gracing her lips, making her look like an angel in disguise.

"Nope, but that's okay," Derek replied, leaning over and giving her a relatively chaste kiss on the lips. They were in public, after all. "What're you getting, Baby Girl?"

She chuckled. "You probably don't want to know."

"Really?"

JJ rolled her eyes and sighed. "Okay, guys? Stop being cute. It's making my stomach turn."

Reid laughed. "All things considered, JJ, that's the height of irony."

"I'm tired and hungry," she snapped in reply.

"I'm having the steak and fresh catch," Hotch interjected.

"The pho sounds amazing – I love Vietnamese," Emily said.

"Mama, what's on your plate?" Derek asked with a smile.

"I told you that you probably don't want to know," Penelope replied as the waiter came over and took their orders.

They laughed a lot and filled each other in on their lives and everything that had happened in the last year – photos were shared, memories created from stories, and JJ's smile finally returned when the salads came out.

But everyone's smiles disappeared when the food was delivered and Penelope's plate was put down. "The hell is that?" Rossi asked, pointing at the purplish-grey blob of sticky goo on her plate.

"I told you all that you didn't want to know," Penelope said cheerfully. "I have ahi poke, octopus and squid poke, poi, and sticky rice."

"So the nasty-looking mess is –"

"Poi," Penelope said with a small smile.

"Since when do you eat fish?" JJ asked.

"For a while now," Penelope hedged. "Anyway – " She lifted her wine glass. "To… all of you. I owe you a gold star for finding me."

"You owe us a hell of a lot more than that," Emily laughed.

Penelope held up her clutch – the one that JJ had bought her for Christmas – and smirked. "Dinner is on me – or, rather, dinner is on the untraceable FBI slush fund that I have access to," she announced. "So, feel free to try the bread pudding – or whatever the hell you want."

"And you're all going to be at our wedding," Derek said firmly. "I won't take no for an answer – you're just as much family as anyone else is."

She smiled over at him. "Hot Stuff? Shut up and eat your dead cow."

Rossi snorted a laugh. "You sure you wanna marry her?" he teased, winking.

Derek smiled at Penelope, and everything was right with the world. "Hell yes," he said. "I've only been waiting for 10 years for her to notice that she's perfect for me."

She slapped his shoulder with her purse and grabbed her fork. "I'm going to pretend you didn't say that, Derek Morgan."

His smile grew into a shit-eating grin as he watched her. She was perfect and he'd always known that eventually they would be together – he'd just had to grow the fuck up and stop being selfish. Tomorrow was going to mark a new life for both of them, and it would be good. 

* * *

><p>The kiss sealed the deal: they were now husband and wife, legally binding. And they would do anything for each other. 10 years of sacrifice and building up their friendship was going to hold them in good stead for the rest of their lives. Derek smiled and kissed her again for good measure. "Good morning, Mrs. Morgan," he said softly.<p>

"I'll show you a good morning, Hot Stuff – after we get some breakfast. I'm starving," Penelope giggled. "And we have to go to work."

"You two get the rest of the day off," Hotch said.

Judge Chao smiled and said, "If you all are done, I'm going to the beach with my kids –"

"Absolutely," Rossi said. "We'll get out of your office and get these two lovebirds home."

The team headed out of the office and then out of City Hall – only for Penelope to stop the others with a, "Derek and I can take the bus back to Waikiki – the rest of you have to get going. But I'm just a phonecall away, right? So if you need anything –"

"If we need anything, you're the first call," Hotch assured her. "But you have to pick up the phone."

Derek laughed. "That won't be a problem," he said sweetly.

She elbowed him in the gut. "Smart ass," Penelope murmured, accepting a peck of a kiss from him.

"You two better have this out of your system tomorrow," Hotch warned. "Because we're delivering the profile and then going after the unsub – and I need you both focused."

"Oh, we're gonna be focused," Derek promised with a grin.

"God, stop it," Emily groaned. "Enough with the – ugh. The lovey-dovey crap."

Derek and Penelope smiled over at her, then headed toward the bus stop. It wasn't right, but it felt good to abandon the team and go have some more adult-themed alone time. But first, they were going shopping – he was tired of seeing his wifey in the drab clothes of a boring woman when she was ever so much more than that. And that chocolate brown hair would have to go – he missed his blonde sex kitten.

Fortunately, he knew he wouldn't have to do much convincing to get her on the same page. She was happier than he'd ever seen her in the 10 years they'd known one another – and if he'd known that it would only take this to do it? He would've gone back in time and dragged her out on a date and sexed her up so well that she wouldn't ever want to leave.

Mmmhmm, he had it bad.


	10. Unexpectedly Expected

Same bat-signal, same bat-channel – I don't own Criminal Minds, thank god.

* * *

><p>Part ten: Unexpectedly Expected<p>

* * *

><p>She didn't realize she'd been counting the hours since she'd been married. Thirty-eight hours and fifty-six minutes.<p>

That's how long it took for her goon squad to show up.

It was expected in an unexpectedly dismal way.

Penelope saw Agent Carter as soon as he came into the conference room, and she saw the disapproval on his face. But she raised her chin defiantly. "I will not go with you," she said. "Not this time. I will NOT leave my husband."

"Don't you realize that that's why we're here, Garcia?" Carter all but spat. "I'm fucking sick and tired of baby-sitting your ass. Agent Arthur is packing your things at the condo. Get your ass ready to leave: your new assignment won't wait."

She stayed stubbornly still in her seat. "I won't."

"Don't make me use the handcuffs, Garcia."

She took a deep breath and finally rose to her feet. "Can I at least say goodbye?" Penelope asked, her new-found courage failing her completely in the face of all of this.

Carter snorted and gave her a dispassionate, almost dirty look. "Just get your shit and get in the car, Garcia. You know how this works."

"Like witness protection, but full on retarded," she muttered, closing her laptop and leaving her phone on the table. "I thought this time might be different."

"You thought wrong, little girl."

Less than an hour later, she was on a plane back to the mainland – god only knows where. And she only knew that if her heart had broken before, it was shattered now. 

* * *

><p>The condo was empty of all the things that were Penelope's – and Derek took that opportunity to grab one of the pretty little vases that clearly belonged to the FBI and hurl it at the nearest wall. How fucking DARE they do this to them again?<p>

The case wasn't going to wrap up neatly and he needed Penelope – for her knowledge just as much as her body, her soul, her mind… GOD DAMN IT.

It was all he could do to go down the hall and tell Hotch, "She's gone. My wife is gone." 

* * *

><p>"Six months," Penelope echoed very softly. "I do this for six months more and then you'll re-write my contract and give me back to the BAU permanently?"<p>

The Director nodded. "You've done everything we've asked you to do – with the exception of not creating ties to anyone. That was mostly for your own protection, so our star hacker couldn't be influenced by outside forces – or inside forces. But since you went and married Agent Morgan and he's been breathing down my neck for over a month now, I'm going to amend your contract."

"He's just concerned," Penelope murmured. "And angry that he can't find me. To be brutally honest, that was the most indelicate extraction you've managed to put together – pull me out right out from under their noses? What did you think he was going to do? Roll over and play dead?"

"I'd hoped he would be reasonable –"

"I'd hoped that you would be reasonable," she challenged. "Can I at least call him? I won't tell him where I am or what my assignment is… I just don't want him to think that I've given up on this. Us. Our life together. I want him to know that this is WHY I'm coming home in six months. Because I made a deal with the devil."

"I'm not the devil," the Director said, handing her his cellphone. "I have your best interests at heart, Agent Garcia."

"Agent Morgan," she corrected firmly, dialing the number from memory.

"Director –"

"Hiya, Hot Stuff," Penelope murmured. "I borrowed the Director's phone for a few minutes to tell you something."

"Where are you, Baby?"

"Somewhere safe," she promised. "I'm fine – and I'll be coming back to Quantico soon."

"How soon?" Derek asked, his voice breaking.

"Six months," she sighed.

"Not soon enough," he whined.

"I know," she agreed, nodding. "You have no idea how much I know that, Handsome. But it's just six months, and then we have the rest of our lives together. I promise. It's a trade-off – I put in the time, I get out of the old contract and into a new one where I won't be moved around all the time. I love you and I'm doing this for us, Derek."

He sighed heavily. "Six months."

"Yeah – and I'll find a way to call you," she promised softly. "Or at least email. Because I miss the hell out of you, Derek Morgan, and I can't wait to be back in Virginia."

"Okay," he muttered. "But I don't like it."

"Neither do I," she whispered. "But it's what has to be done."

"I'll have the house ready when you come home," he promised. "And I want my Baby Girl back – you have no idea, Mama."

"Not as much as I want my husband," she contradicted. "Baby, I've got to go – I'm sorry."

"Don't apologize, Princess."

"I love you," she whispered.

"I love you, too," he exhaled with a tired sigh. "Be careful and come home safe, Baby Girl."

She had every intention of doing just that.


	11. Six Months and Counting

Do you really think that I have anything to do with Criminal Minds? Silly people.

* * *

><p>Part eleven: Six Months and Counting<p>

* * *

><p>"Have they put her paperwork through?" Derek asked, pacing in Hotch's office.<p>

"Are you going to ask me every hour on the hour?" Hotch replied, finally getting annoyed. "The answer is still a no. I haven't gotten her transfer."

"It's been six months, two weeks, four days, and thirteen hours since she called," Derek hissed, his pace quickening as he wore a hole into the carpet. "Where the fuck is she, Hotch? Where the FUCK is my wife?"

"I'm sure she's fine," Hotch sighed. "You're probably taking the six month clause too literally –"

"Six months means fucking six months," Derek muttered. "Not one day more. Not one day less. Six calendar months. She didn't say anything about business days – just six months."

"Morgan, calm down," Hotch muttered under his breath. "She's fine."

"Right," Derek said, throwing his hands up in the air. "Because that's just something you know –"

"Get out of my office," Hotch ordered. "And don't come back the rest of the day, Morgan. I will call and let you know as soon as they put the transfer through. Meanwhile, you can go tell Lynch that he's going to be going back to the tech pool because he's not what we need for the position."

Derek was gnashing his teeth when he stormed into Lynch's office. "You're fired," he said. "From our team anyway."

"Yeah, I know," Lynch said all too happily. "Hotch told me the other day – something about finding someone more suited to the job. Which is great, because I'm transferring to the Vegas office anyway. I'm tired of murder."

Derek paused. Lynch was taking this way too well. Something was off.

He left the tiny office and passed by the office that still remained empty, despite almost two years having passed since Penelope had been snatched away. He was almost past it when he heard a thump from inside and a plaintive whine, then two soft, feminine voices. Then silence. He must be losing his mind –

He was about to walk away when he heard something dragging inside the room.

That's it: he was a profiler, an investigator, and he couldn't fucking let someone tamper with her office while she was gone.

He jiggled the door handle – locked. But it was only a moment before the door opened a crack and JJ stuck her head out. "What the hell are you doing in there?" Derek asked.

"Em and I are fixing things for Penelope," JJ said. "She called and said she'll be here in a few days – so we should get her office set up."

"Hotch hasn't gotten her transfer paperwork –"

"Or has he?" Emily replied, appearing behind JJ. "And he's just not telling you because you've been a jackass for the last two weeks?"

"I have not –"

"You made Reid CRY," JJ reminded him snarkily. "If that doesn't spell jackass, I don't know what does."

Derek sighed. "Fine, I've been an ass – when is Penelope coming back?" It seemed wrong to have to ask where his wife was and when she was coming home. She should already BE THERE.

"Monday," Emily said. "Don't get all excited or anything. We'll probably have a case –"

"Don't even joke," Derek muttered.

JJ rolled her eyes. "You've been such a brat for the last couple of years," she pointed out. "Pull your big boy boxers on and suck it up – Pen's going to be pissed that you haven't shaven that monstrosity off your face."

"I like it," Derek protested.

"She won't," Emily replied, laughing. "And with a full beard, you look like a reject from a Jesus movie set."

Derek grumbled. "Monday?" he said.

"Monday," JJ replied. "It's Friday – it's only three days away. You'll survive."

He sighed and rubbed his head. "Okay, well –"

"Go back to your office and stop being a jerk," Emily ordered.

"Do you need help moving anything?" he asked.

"Nope, we've got it," JJ said cheerfully. "Get outta here. You've got paperwork to do."

Reluctantly, he walked away. 

* * *

><p>She kept quiet for another ten minutes or so – long enough that she knew that Derek would lose interest and leave. Then she exhaled and looked at her best friends. "Holy shit, that was close," Penelope commented. "He's going to shit his pants tonight when we meet up at the bar –"<p>

"You better believe it," JJ said with a saucy grin. "Now, where's this supposed to go?"

Penelope sighed. "You, my darling, need to learn how USB hubs work."

"That's a hub?" Emily said, raising an eyebrow. "It looks like the Tardis to me –"

"Yes and it lights up and everything," Penelope muttered. "You two are technologically useless."

"Yup," JJ replied, plugging a bunch of USB cords into the hub. "Okay, we're good to go. I think."

Penelope looked around her familiarly small office and smiled. "You have no idea how good it feels to be home, finally," she murmured. "I almost feel bad about surprising Derek."

"You shouldn't – he really did make Reid cry," Emily said with a sigh. "He's been a BEAR the last few months. I won't go so far as to say it's your fault, but it's totally your fault."

"I know," Penelope sighed, getting up and pacing. "So, tonight, the bar – what should I wear? I don't want him to just look at me and know…"

"Wear clothes," JJ advised wryly. "Going naked is a dead giveaway."

"Right," Penelope sighed. "I don't really have any of my stuff yet – it's still in transit."

"Then you and I are going shopping," JJ said firmly. "Let's go get you something to knock Derek Morgan's socks right off his silly man feet." 

* * *

><p>Derek knew he was late – but he'd been shaving and had lost track of time. The others probably thought he wasn't going to show up. To be honest, all he wanted was a couple of shots of whiskey and to smack Hotch around a little bit for not telling him that Penelope would be home soon.<p>

He slid into his seat and Emily offered him a bottle of beer. He shook his head and reached for the shots in the center of the table instead. Once upon a time, he would've looked around the bar and flirted with all of the pretty girls – and the not so pretty ones, too. He'd been young and stupid once; but now he was a married man and all he wanted was his beautiful wife. Three days was three days too long after everything they'd been through.

"Hey, you might wanna slow down there, tiger," Rossi said with a chuckle.

"Old man, do not tell me what to do," Derek grumbled. He pointed at Hotch and drained the shot. "And you – you're on my list."

"I was on your list six months ago," Hotch replied with an amused smile.

Derek grumbled something under his breath, but he stopped short and shook his head. "I'm going to the bar – anyone want anything?"

"We have plenty here," JJ pointed out.

"Yeah, but the beer y'all picked tastes like pig piss," Derek pointed out.

"Okay, fair point," Emily replied.

The bar wasn't overly busy for a Friday night, but it was still busy enough that he had to sidle up to the bar between the stools. There was a drunken toothless guy to his left and a blonde to his right who looked like she was nursing a glass of chocolate milk. What the hell?

Feeling magnanimous, he said, "Give her another, Paul – and I'll take a…" Derek's voice trailed off when he noticed the sparkling pink diamonds on the woman's left hand. "I'll take a – a – bottle of –"

"My husband will have a bottle of Boulevard Pale Ale," Penelope said with a smile. "And, yes, I'd love another chocolate milk."

Derek's fingers clenched around the bar and he clung to it like he was about to faint – and big scary FBI agents don't faint. But, boy, was he light-headed –

"Hot Stuff, maybe you should sit down," Penelope said, sliding off her stool and helping him up onto it. She smiled and said, "You surprised?"

"Blind-sided," was all he could manage to say.

"Here ya go," Paul said, sliding a beer and another glass of chocolate milk with a funky swirly straw across the bar. Derek fished in his pocket for a bill and tossed it across the bar – with a hefty tip.

"When did you get back?" Derek asked when he finally managed to find his voice.

"Last night – they're putting me up in a hotel till I'm officially transferred," she said in a sweet but husky voice. "But I could just go home with my husband tonight, and life wouldn't stop." She picked up her milk and sucked on the straw with a smile on her bright red lips.

"Is that why you're drinking milk?" he asked, his brow scrunching. "Designated driver?"

She laughed and rolled her eyes indulgently at him. "For a profiler, you're pretty damn stupid," Penelope commented dryly, stepping back so he could look her over. She was back to her normal, beautiful, blonde, wild Bohemian gypsy self – and her curves were back in force.

"Mama, I don't understand –"

"Follow me," Penelope said, offering him her hand. He suddenly realized she was wearing flats instead of her sky-high heels and his mind turned over furiously, trying to understand –

"That better be non-alcoholic," JJ said as soon as they got within earshot of the table.

"Of course," Penelope said with a smile. "Baby Morgan will not be partying till she's an appropriate age of 21."

"Morgan, shut your mouth," Rossi commented. "You might swallow something."

Reid started laughing. "Morgan, seriously – you were looking right at her. How could you not tell she's pregnant?"

"Right?" Emily said, giggling. "Derek, her tits are pretty monstrous –"

"Hey, shut up," Penelope laughed defensively. "It's okay that he's gobsmacked; I just kind of scared the crap out of him, right?"

"I thought – Monday –"

"I start back to work Monday," Penelope murmured. "Sweetheart, you haven't even drunk your beer yet."

"Fuck the beer!" Derek said, slamming it onto the table and grabbing her. It was all of a moment before he was kissing the hell out of her – it had been too long since he'd seen her for him to do anything else. Hell, he would've dragged her to the bathroom and fucked her senseless if he wasn't worried about one or both of them getting some kind of communicable disease.

When they came up for air, to the hoots and cat-calls of the team and many other spectators in the bar, she smiled up at him with swollen lips and smeared lipstick. She laughed and it was the most beautiful sound he'd ever heard. "I don't wanna fuck the beer, baby. But I will go home with you and show you a hell of a good time," she bargained.

"Hey, Morgan, you have a little lipstick –" Hotch said with a tiny smile, gesturing at his face. Derek reached up and swiped at his face, but Hotch just sighed. "Yeah, y'know, it's everywhere, Morgan."

Penelope laughed and grabbed a napkin to help clean him up. "Aww, sweetie, there you go," she murmured teasingly. "Of course, the only honey you have a shot with tonight is the one you were just making out with, you know."

"I don't want anyone else," he said fiercely, grabbing her hand and all but dragging her to the door.

The rest of the team was hooting and hollering in approval as they stalked out into the night.


	12. Home, Sweet Home

I still don't own anything related to Criminal Minds. Thank god. Because that would be funny, trying to explain why I was writing fanfic instead of the show. HA!

* * *

><p>Part twelve: Home, Sweet Home<p>

* * *

><p>They didn't even make it to his SUV before Derek was all over her again. Which Penelope was not about to complain about – she'd been dealing with being horny all by her lonesome for far too long. She was actually concerned about developing carpal tunnel syndrome not from excessive typing – but from excessive masturbation.<p>

"Baby," she exhaled when he let up the kisses, "we're gonna get arrested if we fuck in the parking lot."

He blinked at her for a moment, then grinned at her. "But we're the law, Baby Girl –"

"Silly boy," she murmured, "let's go."

"Mine or yours?"

"Ours, stupid," Penelope countered. "There's no mine and yours anymore – just a hotel room that has my stuff in it and a house that's waiting for me to put my stamp on it." She smiled up at him and whispered, "Besides, I've missed Clooney."

"He's missed you, too – but not as much as I have," Derek said.

"Well, Hot Stuff, it's about time you took your wifey and sproglette home," she scolded gently. "So we can start planning a nursery."

"I gotta call Momma and tell her you're home –"

"Did you tell her we got married?" she inquired cautiously, holding his hand so their fingers twined together comfortably. "Because she might be mad about that if you didn't –"

"I told her that I intended to make an honest woman out of you," he said with a shit-eating grin. "But I didn't tell her that we'd already done the deed – and I sure as hell didn't know about the little squirt, or she'd already on a plane with the intent of babying you."

She laughed as they finally got to the car. "Oh, Sugar-pop, I don't need babying – I've spent my entire pregnancy so far confined to a swively chair with a cup of decaf Earl Grey instead of coffee. I'm ready for some excitement, adventure, and sex. Dear god, I've missed fucking you."

"Mama, you'd better stop saying things like that or we're not going to make it home," Derek warned, climbing into the driver's seat. "I will pull this car over and fuck you in the back seat."

"I don't think my back could take that," she replied honestly. "Everything's kind of gone funny since the baby started growing steadily."

He made sure she was strapped in and smiled over at her. "I still can't believe I'm gonna be a dad –"

"Oh, believe it, mister," she said, gently rubbing her belly. "This little miss is high-strung and high-maintenance, just like her parents. And she'll be here in about another two and a half months. So we have to start making plans now."

They drove along, smiling and laughing and talking about baby names – Penelope liked Gabrielle, but Derek favored Lillian. It was just so good to be able to share the same space with him – seven months and change had been a little too long to be apart. And now they'd have a baby to worry about – and what would happen when they didn't have enough time to spend together and everything started to fall apart?

"Mama, why are you crying?" Derek asked in alarm.

"Hormones," she sobbed. "Fucking hormones!"

"Do I need to stop?" he asked and she could tell he really had no idea what to do.

"No – no, I'll be okay," she lied as convincingly as she could, swiping at her eyes. "I just… I cry all the time now. I can't help it. I cried about someone dropping my bag with that stupid snowglobe you bought me in Waipahu and breaking it," she admitted with a pout. "Which is just ridiculous because I could go on eBay and get one just like it, but it wasn't the same because it was the one YOU gave me and – ugh, I'm a mess." She looked out the window and saw that they were at the intersection that turned into his neighborhood. "Wait, why aren't you turning – your place is that way."

"Our place is this way," he said, gesturing at the straight-through. "I moved house, Baby Girl. The old one had too many bad memories. Yes, it's just as stupid as it sounds."

"No, not stupid – but there were some good memories there, too."

He turned his head and smirked at her for a moment before realizing the light had turned green. "Yes, there were – but that was the place I took apart the night you disappeared. And it took me a while to put everything back together again… and I realized that I didn't want it if I didn't have my Baby Girl. So I looked for a new place."

"I'll have to get directions to my own house," she said, her tears turning into soft giggles as he turned left into another subdivision. "Do you know how absurdly absurd that is?"

"You're adorable," Derek said. One left, two rights, and a trip around a large cul-de-sac, and they were pulled up outside a house that was definitely larger than she'd thought it would be. "Welcome home, Mrs. Morgan –"

"Derek Morgan, this isn't our house – is it?" Penelope asked as she got out of the car and stared. "No, seriously – "

"Seriously, Mama," he replied with a smile. "Plenty of room, good schools, close to work –"

"There better be a good bed in there," she said firmly, "or the whole deal's off."

"Like I'd make love to my wife in my own home on a mattress that wasn't extraordinary," he scoffed, locking the car and handing her his keys. "Go ahead, Baby Girl, and explore your new habitat."

She squealed softly and hurried to the front door. Of course, her version of hurrying was a little bit more shuffling and waddling than anything else – and the doctor assured her that that was normal, what with the baby causing her pelvis to shift and everything. But that didn't mean she felt any less ungainly for it.

As soon as she got the door open and stepped inside, Derek was behind her, hurrying by to shut off the alarm and hold Clooney back. "Hey," he said to the dog, "you remember Penelope, right, boy? Well, she's come back to us – so you'd better be good, or you won't get to sleep on the bed anymore." She laughed as the dog looked up at him with baleful eyes.

"Let him go," she requested, carefully getting down on her knees so she'd be closer to the dog's level. Clooney bounded over and sniffed her a few times, then poked his nose into her side and whined, then whuffled, and rubbed up against her with his head. "Hey, old boy," Penelope murmured, "I missed you, too." She petted him and scratched behind his ears, smiling when he got up and trotted off to find his food dish. "Wanna help me up, Hot Stuff? Mama's not exactly the most graceful swan in the world at the moment."

He helped her to her feet and smiled. "You want the full tour or do you want to adjourn straight to the bedroom?"

"You said I could explore, so I'm going to explore," she said, pouting. "Don't make me mad, Derek – I'll cry again."

"Oh, god, not the crying!" he laughed, holding up his hands in surrender. "Go look around – do you want me to come with, or will you be mad if I go quick-clean the bathroom?"

She rolled her eyes and sighed. "If you shaved today, you'd better go quick-clean," she warned. "And I hear you had a beard that rivaled Jesus's till tonight, so that bathroom better be spotless, Handsome."

He grinned at her and disappeared. She started poking around, with a smile on her lips. The kitchen was spacious and modern, full of sleek lines and stainless steel, but with crazy colorful countertops that she could tell were custom made from glass pebbles encased in clear, solid resin. The dining room was too big for the dinette set that was sitting there, but painted a gorgeous shade of sunshine yellow with navy curtains. The living room was all Derek's – a huge LCD tv over the fireplace mantle, black leather furniture, dark wood cabinets, and – surprise – lavender colored walls. The home office was just off the living room and had the rudimentary basics: desk, comfy chair, dinosaur computer – which she'd be replacing as soon as her stuff got off the freaking boat – and a funky paisley wallpaper in shades of green, rust, and yellow.

She snuck up the stairs – as much as she could sneak – with Clooney at her side. The dog led her into the first bedroom, which had two twin size beds with blue and brown comforters and soft, off-white walls. The second bedroom was painted rosy pink and had a queen size bed with a lacy comforter on it. The third bedroom had boxes in it, so she could barely get the door open, let alone explore it. The bathroom was all kinds of funky and modern mixed with traditional touches of softness. Which left one more room –

She opened the master bedroom door and smiled. It was purple. The walls were the same shade she'd painted in her old apartment; her old comforter was on the bed – her room separating turquoise beads had replaced the door to the bathroom.

She inhaled and almost started crying. But Derek heard her come in and his arms were around her so quickly that she swallowed the emotional outburst. Instead, she whispered, "You did this – all of this – for me?"

"Hell yes," he said firmly. "And we've got boxes of stuff to go through from my house and your apartment to make this place really ours. Besides – gotta clean out the third room so I can get going on that nursery for our little Lillian."

"I'm not naming our daughter Lillian," Penelope protested.

"Okay, fine – but I'm not naming her Gabrielle." He grinned at her teasingly and gave her a kiss. "So we'll just have to come up with something appropriate for the child of superheroes, won't we?"

"I'm not a superhero –"

"Mama, don't sass me," he replied, "or I'll have to spank you."

She licked her lips. "Yes, please," Penelope replied before she could stop herself.


	13. Good Things Come to Those Who Wait

I still don't own anything to do with Criminal Minds.

* * *

><p>Part thirteen: Good Things Come to Those Who Wait<p>

* * *

><p><em>Did she really just say that?<em> One look at her and he knew that not only had she requested a spanking, she clearly hadn't meant for the words to leave her lips. Her hand had flown to cover her mouth before anything else entirely inappropriate slipped out, but the demand for his hand against her ass was still sitting out in the open, glaring at them both. It almost made him laugh, how eager she was to get back in his pants – they'd only had three days of romping, but they'd evidently made an impact on them both. In the best possible way, of course – and he was trying to talk himself out of just turning her over his knee and giving her exactly what she wanted.

The thought of doing just that was making him feel warm and – yeah, he was already long since hard. The idea of having his wife home and being able to do whatever he – she – THEY wanted to do to each other was incredibly arousing. He wouldn't deny it.

He was already having mental images of kissing his way up her leg, pulling her skirt up and –

Derek shook himself and tried to quell the shiver that ran down his spine, making it that more difficult to deny how hard he was getting. Did she even know what the hell she did to him?

He'd been trying to keep a lid on it since they'd been at the bar – as soon as he realized it was her, really, REALLY his Penelope, his Baby Girl, it had been all he could do not to drag her off and remind her just how perfect they were between the sheets. But he knew that women were different – god knows he'd gotten that lecture enough. He wanted to fuck; she wanted to get comfortable and nest. And he'd already taken that into account and tried to take care of the house so she wouldn't get some weird hankering to go decorate the office while they should be in bed, rutting like animals in heat. Yeah, okay – he just wanted sex, preferably not with his hand.

It took a moment for it to sink in that the silence had turned awkward, and by that time, Penelope was retreating into the bathroom. _Damn it, what just happened? _

"Sorry, Handsome, the little girls' room calls," she replied over her shoulder. "Your daughter likes to sit on my bladder."

He nodded, knowing she couldn't see it, then said, "I'm going to get something to drink – you want anything, Baby Girl?"

"Just some cold water – no ice," she reminded him, though he didn't need it. He knew her like he knew himself; maybe even better.

When he came back upstairs with a glass of water and a glass of tea in hand, she was just emerging from the bathroom. He almost dropped the glasses when he realized she'd found her kimono hanging behind the towel rack and was most likely naked behind that silly robe – oh, dear god, he needed strength.

She smiled sweetly at him and took the glass of water from his grasp. "Thank you for going to my place and getting my things, since I wasn't allowed to take them," she said softly after she'd sipped her water. He kind of wanted to be the glass, since her lips were all over it – but that might be pushing the boundaries of decency once and for all.

"I knew you'd want them when you came back," he said. "So it was a no-brainer."

Penelope smirked at him and said, "Hot Stuff, I just left you and all you could think about was me coming back. I think that's pretty telling –"

"Woman, stop teasing me," he growled. "Not in the mood."

Her smile magnified till it was positively luminous. "Not in the mood for teasing? Who are you and what did you do with my best friend?" she asked, toying with the sash of her robe. He tried to stay calm as the small motions put a strain on the fabric, letting him catch more than just a slight hint of creamy skin at the neckline. Emily was right – Penelope's breasts were positively enormous and he loved that more than he cared to admit.

He threw his hands up in the air, then gestured at her, all the while saying something that sounded stupid to him. "You're teasing me, standing there in that robe and not much else and I'm supposed to think of what? Baseball? Football? All I can think about is being inside you and you're making me crazy, Penelope –"

"Good," was all she said, her smile growing. "Some men have this complex about not wanting to have sex because they think they're going to hurt the baby –"

"Woman, I don't give a damn about 'some men' right now," he snapped. "I haven't had my wife for seven and a half months. I'm about ready to just yank that stupid robe off you and –"

"And what?" she asked innocently.

He growled.

* * *

><p>She wanted to hear him describe just what he wanted to do to her. Penelope wasn't deliberately playing obtuse – she just wanted to rev her mind up a little bit, thinking about all the possibilities and sexy goodness that he could unleash on her. But Derek didn't want to play – he was being all man and forgetting just how important it was to get her mind wound up in addition to her body.<p>

Or, at least, he wasn't playing fair. And it was making her smile fade, to be replaced by a pout.

"And what, Derek? You wanna stare at my stretch marks?" she asked scathingly. "You wanna tell me how big I've gotten?" Maybe that would bait him into action. She was NOT going to spend her first night back with her husband in the bathroom with the showerhead. Even if it took playing mean and dirty and picking a fight before he finally snapped and gave in.

"Jesus, I can't win, can I?" he asked, rubbing his head with a sigh. "Mama, you're not fat and – damn it, stop looking at me like that."

"Like what?"

"Like you're gonna hit me if I say something wrong," he muttered.

She rolled her eyes and sighed. "You're such a baby." When he gave her that doubtful look again, she sighed harder. "I won't hit you. But I would really like it if we could move on to the part where you're making me scream and you're being all smug and superior because you can get me off multiple times before you bust a nut. Because I'm not going to masturbate the rest of the time I'm pregnant when I have a perfectly capable husband – and I'm fucking horny, damn it!"

His eyes widened, then that insufferably smug smile returned to his lips. "Woman, why the hell didn't you just say so? I've been trying to be gentlemanly and –"

"Yeah, well, stop it – it doesn't suit you," she grumbled. "You're the one with the high sex drive –"

"Sounds like my Angel has a bit of a problem she needs help with," he teased, tugging on the sash and letting her kimono fall open the rest of the way. "And I'm just the guy to help with that…"

"Dear god, you'd better," she groaned, leaning into his hands and letting those nimble fingers of his start wandering…

* * *

><p>She was going to shred the sheets the way he was going – and it was exquisitely torturous. In all the best (and worst) possible ways. When he'd added a third finger and went back to laving her clit with all that intensity – dear god, she'd never come so fast in her fucking life. And then he curled his fingers and found the spot that made her black out.<p>

Yes, she'd missed him, and this delightful sexy time with him. But she couldn't remember her name, let alone think enough to tell him anything more than, "Yes – yessss – fuck yes – like that – no, more – FUCK…"

She'd never really entertained the thought of not having him in her life – not even when she'd been pulled away and held hostage at the end of a computer. She'd always known Derek would find her and put things right between them, forever. This, marriage and a baby and a house and – all of this – just sealed the deal. And the sex wasn't bad, either.

Or so she thought as the next orgasm washed over her unexpectedly like a wave crashing on the beach. Holy hell, what was he trying to do? Kill her? Death by chocolate suddenly had a new meaning…

"Baby," she panted, "Derek – Hot Stuff, stop!" He pulled back, looking wounded, and she knew she had to catch her breath and pedal faster to get her brain working again. "You're gonna kill me, honey-bear," she exhaled weakly. "It's time I showed my Stud-muffin a little love –"

"Oh, you've been showing me a LOT of love," Derek assured her, licking his lips and smirking.

"Derek!"

"You know, that baby of ours is gonna be in the way –"

She giggled and wiggled her hips a little. "I guess that means I get to play cowgirl," she teased with a grin. "Where's your chaps, Hot Stuff?"

He glowered at her for a moment, then kissed her belly and worked his way up her body, delivering scorching hot kisses as he went. "You'll never find them, my love," he mocked, repeating a conversation from so long ago that still made her giggle like a schoolgirl.

She blushed and accepted his hungry, deep kiss, tasting herself on his lips and tongue, loving the intimacy behind the action. They shared so much – and trust was all they'd had for so long. Trust and friendship – and unspoken love.

But things were different now – they had so much more.

And she was too wrapped up in the need to have him that she just surprised him and rolled them both over so he was flat on his back and blinking up at her like a speechless moron. "Don't tease Mama," Penelope scolded, growling softly in the back of her throat. She kissed her way down his abs and smirked up at him when she got to her intended target – or so he thought.

He groaned in disappointment when she didn't lavish his erection with any kind of attention – but silly men thought that giving and receiving had to be mutual in the oral department. Not so much. She knew his most erogenous spot, however, and she was going to exploit that for all it was worth.

"Dear god, woman, stop trying to make me shoot off without you!" he was exclaiming moments later when she paused for a moment in massaging the tops of his thighs. She chuckled and straddled his hips, smiling down at him – and she was entirely too happy to savor the moment when they came together again. It took a little bit, because she had to find the right angle, but then she slid down all the way to his hips and let out a single, weak mewl of pleasure when her clit made full contact with his hot skin.

Then they were moving – hot, fast, intensely, so quickly that she got a cramp in the back of her right thigh, but she just kept going, grinding and bucking and swirling her hips in fluid motions that were sending him into a frenzy of lust. She was going to have bruises in the shape of his hands by the time they were done – in two matching semi-circles on her hips.

She scratched at his chest, feeling him still beneath her, then buck into her suddenly – and hard. Hard enough that she came just as swiftly and delightfully as he did. It felt good to have a toe-curling orgasm again – and she loved the feel of him so deep inside her…

She loved laying on his chest and listening to the sound of his heartbeat fluttering like a wounded insect in his ribcage. It made her feel empowered, to know that she could bring him to his knees like that – only her, no one else. And she loved his new tattoo – two simple, black, overlapping circles like a Venn diagram, but with no description. It was only "you", "me", and "us", and it made sense that he'd had it done on his left breast, directly over his heart.

"I love you," she whispered, smiling against his skin when his arms came up and encircled her.

"I love you both," he responded. "My baby girls."


	14. And Then The End

I still don't own anything to do with Criminal Minds, and whatever – that's cool.

And, here we are, finally at the end… because I can TOO finish things.

* * *

><p>Part fourteen: And Then… The End<p>

* * *

><p>In the immortal words of her step-father… OH GODDAMN FUCKING HILLBILLY HOOKER SHIT.<p>

Penelope winced and waited for the contraction to pass before she rejoined Fran in the living room. "We have a problem," she commented as calmly as she could. "My water broke upstairs and my contractions are about six minutes apart – which is as long as it took me to clean up and put on dry clothes."

"Well, then," Fran said with a smile, "we should probably call the hospital and get your bag –"

"And try to call Derek," Penelope reminded her. "God," she sighed, putting her hands on her belly, "why didn't you wait till they finished the case, Lydia?"

"Because that little girl is ready to meet everybody," Fran replied. "And no amount of talking her down will make a difference – she's ready to get out into the world." She got out her phone and dialed Derek – it was an old mom-proof phone, so it even had buttons to push. "Hey, Baby Boy – don't freak out or anything, but your daughter is on the way. Penelope is fine. Yes, I promise, I will – your girls are in good hands." She hung up and appraised Penelope, who had taken the chance to fall into her comfy chair and relax quietly for a moment. "He said, and I quote, 'Are you fucking kidding me?'"

Penelope cracked a wry smile. "Of course he did," she murmured. "I'm saying about the same thing right now… but it's not like I have a choice. They're all the way out in California and he probably won't make it home in time."

"Right," Fran agreed. "Which is why he put me in charge. So I'm going to get your bag and call the hospital and you're going to be fine."

* * *

><p>She woke up at three in the morning to the sound of Derek's rubber soles squeaking as he slid to a stop by her bed. "You're late," Penelope accused, stifling a yawn. "All the excitement is over."<p>

He smiled and leaned down to kiss her. "Baby Girl, the excitement is just beginning…"

"Mmm, yeah, late night feedings and no time for sex and –" she teased with a small smile.

"How're you feeling?"

"Tired, sore – exactly how I'm supposed to feel after pushing a watermelon out of a hole the size of a whatever," she replied. "Have you gone by the nursery yet?"

He nodded and his smile grew. "She's gorgeous, just like her Mama –"

"Lydia Darlene Morgan," Penelope murmured, fighting another yawn. "And she eats like her daddy – she packs it away like no-one's business."

"I'm proud of you, Baby Girl," Derek said softly. "But go ahead and get some sleep. We have time to talk and figure things out," he promised.

"Did you catch the unsub?" she mumbled.

"Shot him myself – I had to get back to my girls," he said proudly.

"Good daddy," she whispered, falling asleep again.

* * *

><p>"Hey, you two – get back from the water," Penelope scolded. "You don't go that close to the water in the dark."<p>

Lydia and Jerome ran back to them, giggling. "Mommy, Daddy, we found shells!" Jerome shouted, holding up a handful of wet sand.

Derek snickered and winked at Penelope. "They're your kids," he reminded her.

She smiled and scooped her son up into her arms. "Are they pretty shells, my little man?" she asked the three year old. He beamed at her and lay his head on her shoulder. "Well, good job, then," she said proudly. "What about you, Lyddie?"

"I just found sand," the four year old Lydia replied with a soul-heaving sigh. "Maybe tomorrow, right, Mommy? Isn't that why we came to the beach?"

Penelope and Derek shared a glance and a smile. Not exactly, but their kids didn't need to know they'd both been conceived on this very beach…

Fin


End file.
